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Reviews of My Tour in Hell: A Marine's Battle with Combat Trauma
- Military Writers Society of America review by Bill McDonald
- ReaderViews.com review by Paige Lovitt
- TCM Reviews by Vianna Renaud
Review by Father Philip G. Salois, M.S.
"Powell describes his tour in Vietnam with the Marines in great detail which sets the stage for his personal journey home with all the painful memories and problems that surface with someone who has gone to hell and come back to tell about it.
"His autobiographical work is a must read for veterans who remain stuck between two worlds-the physical reality of civilian life while the psychological, emotional and spiritual life remain on the battlefield half a world away. Healing is painful but so necessary to reintegrate those two worlds into one. Healing is not forgetting but healing is making sense of the past in order to live life in the present with a restored hope for the future. Powell articulates this process very well and has given a tremendous gift to the combat veteran community of any generation."
Father Philip G. Salois, M.S.
Founder, International Conference of War Veteran Ministers
(formerly the National Conference of Viet Nam Veteran Ministers)
National Chaplain, Vietnam Veterans of America
Review by Sam Vaknin, author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited".
"I read it one night and couldn't let go of it until 03:00 AM. I served in the West Bank in 1979 (all in all, I served more than 3 years in the Israeli Defense Force - IDF). It brought back so many memories! This book is a must read for armchair strategists and glib military analysts. War is not about strategic brilliance or courage. War is about feces and blood, mud and inhumane cruelty, as the first pages of this chilling memoir make clear. Battle strips the thin veneer of civilization that sets us apart from other species. It is about naked survival and triumphant aggression. War is about killing the other guy with your bare hands if need be and, above all, it is about staying alive, doing what it takes to make it through.
"Every trauma specialist should read this tome. You can take the soldier out of the war zone but you can't take the war out of the soldier. The unmitigated, sadistic, self-satisfied violence of combat lurks in the tortured minds of millions of veterans the world over as do the shame and the crippling fear. This book offers one of the best, most intimate description of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that I have ever read precisely because the author is a fellow sufferer, not a smug psychiatrist or theoretician. His style of prose - direct, matter-of-fact, and unflinchingly honest - also helps.
"But, above all, this book is about hope. There are glimpses of humanity amidst the worst atrocities and there are effective therapies to coax the victims of war back into peace and life. It worked for the author who has endured decades of trauma-induced ruination and instability in everything from marriage to business. If he was salvaged, so can we all. Amen."