Afterwar

2.6 million Americans are currently returning home from war, the greatest number since Vietnam. Their external injuries-an amputated limb, a missing eye-are obvious, but post-traumatic stress disorder, survivor's guilt, and the manifold other psychic damages of war known as moral injuries are less visible, though no less painful. Suicides have spiked, and the military has embraced measures such as resilience training to heal mind as well as body. In Making Peace with War, philosopher Nancy Sherman, trained in both ancient ethics and psychoanalysis, draws on in-depth interviews with servicemen and women to paint a richly textured and compassionate picture of the moral and psychological aftermath of America's decade of war. The question of how to move on from great trauma has vexed philosophers since at least the Classical era, and the complex conditions of the contemporary battlefield-war amidst civilians, challenging battlefield partnerships, and the modern soldier's constantly shifting role-create morally messy external landscapes and even more troubling inner conflicts. Processing those moral injuries makes coming home a life-long process. Sherman explores how veterans can go about reawakening their feelings without becoming re-traumatized; how they can replace resentment with trust; and the changes that need to be made by military courts, VA hospitals, and civilians who have been shielded from the heaviest burdens of war in order for this to happen. Americans, from politicians on downward, solemnly intone our