The story of veterans coming home from wars has not been concisely recorded to highlight the major problems they've faced. Having gone to war and survived, they have expectations, hopes, and dreams of a better life. In Homeward Bound, Taylor chronicles their struggles to realize all of those expectations by tracing the experiences of American veterans from the Revolutionary War through the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. In doing so, he connects pieces of a longer, larger story that has traditionally been told only in individual parts. Homeward Bound delves into personal memoirs, dusty diaries, and teary interviews to link veterans' hopes for the future with the ways in which their dreams were fulfilled—or died. It shows how war changed these men and women, how they lived with their experiences despite the odds, and how alone they can be. Accompanying photographs relate still other stories—those written on our veterans' gallant faces.
Unlike most histories of American veterans or veterans' organizations that focus on groups from a specific conflict or era, Taylor's work chronicles the struggles faced by American veterans throughout our history. Each chapter begins with a battlefield vignette designed to take the reader back to a given conflict. This is followed by an explanation of the situation and of the reception veterans faced when they returned home, as well as the evolving response of the federal government to veterans' needs and benefits. Among the issues Taylor explores are social readjustment/acceptance, training, placement, and hiring preferences; medical care and disability compensation; education; retirement and burial. The work also examines to what extent the treatment of women/minority veterans has differed, as well as how veterans' issues have affected women/minorities in society. The chapters are followed by appendices that list veterans programs and organizations. Accompanying photographs relate still other stories—those written on our veterans' gallant faces.
