Enduring Images

Book excerpt: Enduring Images describes the personal cost of war paid by combat veterans and their loved ones over the course of a lifetime. Dr. Paul Fazekas was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1969 at the age of nineteen and participated in the most unpopular and controversial war in American history. He reluctantly, and sometimes defiantly, served as a rifleman with the First Air Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and the 11th Light Infantry Brigade for a one-year tour in Vietnam. Despite his best efforts to forget combat trauma, he was forced to confront the ghosts of Vietnam in 2002, when he met the family of his squad leader who was mortally wounded in an ambush and died in his arms. This providential meeting opened the way to a more meaningful healing from posttraumatic stress, a disorder that many combat veterans and their families can identify with along their own journeys. He was awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge along with other military medals and decorations.