McAllen Higher Education Center

The 2018 midterm elections were both record-breaking and pathbreaking. Americans elected four women to the Senate along with twenty-four women to the House. At the same time, nearly two hundred veterans were on ballots across the country, including a dozen women with military service experience, three of whom won their races. Two years later, female veterans campaigned for office at every level. Service above Self: Women Veterans in American Politics explores this burgeoning area of interest by looking closely at the careers of former servicewomen in US politics. Despite the growing presence of women candidates with military service or intelligence backgrounds in elected office throughout the United States, this is the first book to examine the motivation, messaging, and connections between military and public service for female veterans.

Spotlights the challenges faced by our increasing cadre of military women when their service ends and they become civilians. Combining research with narrative, this book exposes common threads of lived experience and reviews the latest data on military women and their healthy reintegration into civilian society. Female veterans share their stories of seeking to be seen in a culture where they don't quite fit and their struggles to find community and friendship. Some fought during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as the first women in combat in American history. Through the stories of these courageous yet entirely human women, readers learn about the experiences of a new and often forgotten generation of veterans; about the challenges surrounding family and career choices that millions of American women face; and ultimately, about sacrifice, resiliency, loss, and love.

From political wunderkind and former army intelligence officer Jason Kander comes a haunting, powerful memoir about impossible choices--and how sometimes walking away from the chance of a lifetime can be the greatest decision of all. In 2017, President Obama, in his final Oval Office interview, was asked who gave him hope for the future of the country, and Jason Kander was the first name he mentioned. In this brutally honest second memoir, Jason Kander has written the book he himself needed in the most painful moments of his PTSD. In candid, in-the-moment detail, we see him struggle with undiagnosed illness as he considered a presidential bid; witness his family buoy him through challenging treatment; and, giving hope to so many of us, see him heal.

Brooke King has been asked over and over what it's like to be a woman in combat, but she knows her answer is not what the public wants to hear. In her riveting memoir War Flower, King breaks her silence and reveals the truth about her experience as a soldier in Iraq. Find out how King's feelings for a country she knew nothing about as a nineteen-year-old become more disturbing to her as a thirty-year-old mother writing it all down before her memories fade into oblivion. War Flower gathers the enduring remembrances of a soldier coming to grips with post-traumatic stress disorder. As King recalls her time in Iraq, she reflects on what violence does to a woman and how the psychic wounds of combat are unwittingly passed down from mother to children. For veterans such as King, the toughest lesson of service is that in the mind, some wars never end--even after you come home.

On November 18th, 1967, Private First Class Davis's artillery unit was hit by a massive enemy offensive. At twenty-one years old, he resolved to face the onslaught and prepared to die. Soon he would have a perforated kidney, crushed ribs, a broken vertebra, his flesh ripped by beehive darts, a bullet in his thigh, and burns all over his body. Ignoring his injuries, he manned a two-ton Howitzer by himself, crossed a canal under heavy fire to rescue three wounded American soldiers, and kept fighting until the enemy retreated. His heroism that day earned him a Congressional Medal of Honor-the ceremony footage of which ended up being used in the movie Forrest Gump. You Don't Lose 'Til You Quit Trying chronicles how Davis's childhood in the American Heartland prepared him for the worst night of his life, and how that night set off a lifetime battling against debilitating injuries. But he also battled for his fellow veterans, speaking on their behalf for forty years to help heal the wounds and memorialize the brotherhood that war could forge.

A blend of memoir, history, and oral storytelling, The Time Left between Us bridges the gap between the generation who fought World War II and the generation who has forgotten it. Alicia DeFonzo takes an unplanned visit to the Normandy beaches while staying in Paris. Her grandfather "Del" (Anthony DelRossi) had fought in World War II, and she becomes distraught after realizing how little she knows about the war and his experiences, which until then had remained largely unspoken. Across landscapes and lifetimes DeFonzo retraces her beloved grandfather's tour through World War II Europe. The eighty-four-year-old DelRossi recounts stories as an army combat engineer surviving major campaigns, including Normandy, St. Lo, the Bulge, Hürtgenwald, and Remagen, then liberating concentration camps. In this braided narrative, we see DeFonzo's childhood in a traditional Italian American family with an erratic Marine Corps father and a beloved grandfather. Both nostalgic and gripping, The Time Left between Us is a meditation on how deeply connected the past is to the present and how the truth--and what we remember of it--are fragmented.

This book explores the physical, emotional, social, economic, and psychological impact of military service and the problems that veterans face when they return to civilian life. The authors critically examine the role of advocacy organizations, philanthropies, corporations, and politicians who purport to be “pro-veteran.” They describe the ongoing debate about the cost, quality, and effectiveness of healthcare provided or outsourced by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). They also examine generational divisions and political tensions among veterans, as revealed in the tumultuous events of 2020, from Black Lives Matter protests to the Trump-Biden presidential contest. Frank and revealing, Our Veterans proposes a new agenda for veterans affairs linking service provision to veterans to the quest for broader social programs benefiting all Americans.

Written by civil rights expert and Dartmouth history professor Matthew Delmont. Over one million Black men and women served in World War II. Black troops were at Normandy, Iwo Jima, and the Battle of the Bulge, serving in segregated units and performing unheralded but vital support jobs, only to be denied housing and educational opportunities on their return home. Without their crucial contributions to the war effort, the United States could not have won the war. And yet the stories of these Black veterans have long been ignored. Half American is American history as you've likely never read it before. In these pages are stories of Black heroes such as Thurgood Marshall, Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., Ella Baker, James Thompson, and poet Langston Hughes. Their bravery and patriotism in the face of unfathomable racism is both inspiring and galvanizing. In a time when the questions World War II raised regarding race and democracy in America remain troublingly relevant and still unanswered, this meticulously researched retelling makes for urgently necessary reading.

One of the most decorated groups that served in the Vietnam War, Chicanos fought and died in numbers well out of proportion to their percentage of the United States' population. Yet despite this, their wartime experiences have never received much attention in either popular media or scholarly studies. To spotlight and preserve some of their stories, this book presents substantial interviews with Chicano Vietnam veterans and their families that explore the men's experiences in combat, the war's effects on the Chicano community, and the veterans' postwar lives. Lea Ybarra groups the interviews topically to bring out different aspects of the Chicano vets' experiences. In addition to discussing their involvement in and views on the Vietnam War, the veterans also reflect on their place in American society, American foreign policy, and the value of war. Veterans from several states and different socioeconomic classes give the book a broad-based perspective, which Ybarra frames with sociological material on the war and its impact on Chicanos.

Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence is a compelling story of courage, community, endurance, and reparation. It shares the experiences of Japanese Americans (Nisei) who served in the U.S. Army during World War II, fighting on the front lines in Italy and France, serving as linguists in the South Pacific, and working as cooks and medics. All of the soldiers were American citizens, but their parents were Japanese immigrants and had been imprisoned in camps as a consequence of Executive Order 9066. The racist homecoming that the Hood River Japanese American soldiers received was decried across the nation. Linda Tamura, who grew up in Hood River and whose father was a veteran of the war, conducted extensive oral histories with the veterans, their families, and members of the community. She had access to hundreds of recently uncovered letters and documents from private files of a local veterans' group that led the campaign against the Japanese American soldiers.

Release Date: 2016
This moving documentary follows two Iraq veterans, Tom Voss and Anthony Anderson, both tormented by depression for years after they returned home and pushed to the edge of suicide. The two embark on an extraordinary journey – a 2,700 mile walk across the country from Wisconsin to California, in order to reflect on their haunting experiences of war and to ultimately, save themselves.
Will this epic pilgrimage allow them to begin the new life they so desperately seek?

Release Date: 2017
Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, a small contingent of US Troops were sent on a secret mission to overthrow the Taliban. What happens next is equal parts war origin story & cautionary tale, illuminating the impact of 15 years of constant combat. This untold story features unprecedented access to the Green Berets who played pivotal roles in these covert missions. Reflecting on their experiences and on the brothers-in-arms they lost, these elite soldiers offer a riveting celebration of valor and a sobering, cautionary tale.

Release Date: 2015
A powerful, 70-minute documentary featuring nine U.S. veterans transitioning from active duty to the unexpected challenges of civilian life. Our film is told through the voices of dynamic young men and women from diverse economic and racial backgrounds and varied branches of military service. Join these brave and honest veterans as they share their surprising journeys into military service, the intense and at times harrowing experiences of active duty followed by the highs and lows of forging their own independent identities in a large liberal university.

Release Date: 2017
This short documentary follows the struggles of a diverse group of veterans. VOICES OF RESILIENCE offers inspirational examples of veterans who are opening up to ancient practices of yoga and meditation, warriors who are searching – and finally finding themselves – on a path towards inner peace.

Release Date: 2019
Follows veterans suffering from PTSD, who are paired with service dogs to help them heal and restore their independence when traditional treatments fall short.

Release Date: 2015
Shot over five years, OF MEN AND WAR gives perhaps the most in-depth look at the recovery efforts of veterans suffering from PTSD. Through unprecedented access to their lives at home and intensely vivid footage of some therapy sessions, director Laurent Bécue-Renard
unveils the gripping, upsetting reality that is the daily life of most war veterans. OF MEN AND WAR takes place at The Pathway Home, founded by veteran therapist Fred Gusman in Yountville, California. For the duration of production, director Laurent Bécue-Renard was granted full access to the facility, where, over five months of quiet observation, he gained the trust of the veterans and their therapist. Only then did Bécue-Renard begin filming every aspect of the veterans’ lives. PTSD can be neither cured nor forgotten, but, in articulating trauma, the warriors can work to find their way forward through the pain.