CHRISTOPHER CHURCHILL
LETTER FROM
THE EDITOR
tionally gifted and versatile artist
who could do it all, and do it all
incredibly well. Personally, she’ll
be cherished as a wife and mother,
and a devoted, giving, treasured —
and irreplaceable — friend.
The centerpiece of this week’s
issue is David Wood’s “The War
Within.” David’s story contains
many striking sentences, but this
one stood out to me: “While the
Greek historian Herodotus mentioned the trauma of war 25 centuries ago in his account of the
battle of Marathon, it wasn’t until
1980 that American psychiatry
formally recognized and named
the condition, describing PTSD
as an injury caused by an outside
stimulus rather than by an internal human weakness.”
Bringing such depth and context
to the effort of understanding the
true costs of war goes some way
toward demonstrating why David,
HuffPost’s senior military correspondent, won a Pulitzer Prize in
April for national reporting. His
series “Beyond the Battlefield”
was a ten-part multimedia plunge
into the struggles and sacrifices
of severely wounded veterans of
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. David, who has logged more
than four decades as a reporter
in combat zones across the globe,
brought extraordinary experience
and empathy to his project, speaking not only to wounded veterans but to the vast constellation
of people whose lives they touch,
from family, friends and fellow
soldiers to the surgeons, rehabilitation therapists and prosthetics
engineers who ease the transition
from war to civilian life.
HUFFINGTON
07.01-08.12
A new feature
from David
Wood gives a
deep look at
the struggles
veterans face
back at home.