GQ magazine has a superb, hauntingly beautiful (and eloquently written) article called "The Long Shadow of War." The description reads, "As a young soldier in Vietnam, Cecil Ison saw something, something so horrific that he buried the memory of it for thirty years and swore he'd never allow it to surface again. Then, on March 20, 2003 -- the day after we started bombing Iraq -- the past leapt up and grabbed him."
There's no two ways about it: this is the best writing I've read in years, especially on this topic. The story is long -- but practically every sentence is a gem. It covers most of the grand themes surrounding PTSD in really an epic sweep. There's the Vietnam War itself, always a player; Cecil, the cantankerous Appalachian individualist at the center of the story; his lovely, long-suffering and adorable wife, who loves and attends to Cecil and his various states, and quilts something lovely for him and his brothers about their Vietnam experience; his two brothers who are also battling their own demons from war, but handling it differently; his mother, who sent all three sons off to Vietnam to fight; the VA and its therapists, who minister to Cecil in his nervous breakdown; the countryside, whose silence and remoteness helps nurture Cecil in his darkest times; and finally, the writer, Kathy Dobie, whose talent is just off the charts phenomenal. (Although it's also a close race with Cecil himself, and his wonderful wry way of putting his life into perspective, when he can, reminiscent of the humor of that 60s icon, Richard Brautigan.)
An example, from Cecil, when Kathy the writer asks him if he's a Vietnam vet:
“Yes, I received a letter from the president of the United States one day,” he said with sardonic cheerfulness. “I was out playing Whiffle ball, just having a wonderful time, and I got the mail and it said, ‘Greetings. Your friends and neighbors have selected you to serve in the Armed Forces.’ At that point, I knew I had no friends and no neighbors.”
As just one small example of the writer's deep psychological attunement and her innate grace with language, she first bonds with Cecil, thinking about his breakdown, by sending him the opening lines from Dante's Divine Comedy: "In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost." He responds a few days later with, "The mind is a strange thing—how it can paint over harsh images for decades but then for some reason they can emerge as quickly as the bare wood on a whitewashed fence after a rain. (One thinks) this is something that other people experience but not me, until it strikes like a blow from a sledge hammer. You are most welcome to explore my condition. I’m still struggling with the fact that this is a real condition and many, many others struggle with the same thing…"
Dobie is the best writer I've read in I don't know how long, on a topic I absolutely love. She's the author of a memoir about trauma called, The Only Girl in the Car: A Memoir, a fact which explains some of her sensitivity and emotional depth in the Cecil Ison story. Apparently she sold that book to the publisher on the strength of the book's "brilliant writing and emotional power." Fantastic. What a wonderful treatment of a powerful topic, and a quirky, charismatic "hero." (His wife is also a hero, and sounds just adorable.)
