The Invisible Front
Love and Loss in an Era of Endless War
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The unforgettable story of a military family that lost two sons—one to suicide and one in combat—and channeled their grief into fighting the armed forces’ suicide epidemic.
Major General Mark Graham was a decorated two-star officer whose integrity and patriotism inspired his sons, Jeff and Kevin, to pursue military careers of their own. His wife Carol was a teacher who held the family together while Mark's career took them to bases around the world. When Kevin and Jeff die within nine months of each other—Kevin commits suicide and Jeff is killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq—Mark and Carol are astonished by the drastically different responses their sons’ deaths receive from the Army. While Jeff is lauded as a hero, Kevin’s death is met with silence, evidence of the terrible stigma that surrounds suicide and mental illness in the military. Convinced that their sons died fighting different battles, Mark and Carol commit themselves to transforming the institution that is the cornerstone of their lives.
The Invisible Front is the story of how one family tries to set aside their grief and find purpose in almost unimaginable loss. The Grahams work to change how the Army treats those with PTSD and to erase the stigma that prevents suicidal troops from getting the help they need before making the darkest of choices. Their fight offers a window into the military’s institutional shortcomings and its resistance to change – failures that have allowed more than 3,000 troops to take their own lives since 2001. Yochi Dreazen, an award-winning journalist who has covered the military since 2003, has been granted remarkable access to the Graham family and tells their story in the full context of two of America’s longest wars. Dreazen places Mark and Carol’s personal journey, which begins when they fall in love in college and continues through the end of Mark's thirty-four year career in the Army, against the backdrop of the military’s ongoing suicide spike, which shows no signs of slowing. With great sympathy and profound insight, The Invisible Front details America's problematic treatment of the troops who return from war far different than when they'd left and uses the Graham family’s work as a new way of understanding the human cost of war and its lingering effects off the battlefield.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dreazen, deputy editor of Foreign Policy, offers up an often painful family story involving recently retired U.S. Army General Mark Graham, his wife, Carol, and their sons, Jeff and Kevin both of whom served in the military. Kevin, the high-achieving middle child who suffered from depression, hung himself in 2003. Less than a year later, Jeff was killed in action while serving as an Army officer in Iraq. After Kevin's suicide the Grahams devoted themselves to making the Army more responsive to mental illness within its ranks. Dreazen makes a convincing case that Mark Graham's persistence in working on suicide prevention, PTSD treatment, and other issues put a premature end to his military career when he was he was passed over for a third star. Since Mark Graham's retirement in 2012, he and his wife have devoted themselves to working for organizations dedicated to military suicide prevention. In telling this story, Dreazen leans heavily on the hundreds of hours of interviews he conducted with the Grahams and their friends and family. The result is a journalistic tale that shines a revealing and a disturbing light on the ongoing emotional legacy of America's two most recent wars.
Customer Reviews
Raw and emotional truth
Together, a family turns their sorrow into service - service to the thousands who suffer from invisible battle damage. Every leader (military and civilian) must read this book!