Reading list
Books for the long walk home.
Twelve books on mentorship, mental health, transition, and the texture of coming home — picked for veterans, by people who served or did the reporting up close. Every book links through Bookshop.org. As an affiliate, parade.rest earns a small commission when you buy through these links — at no extra cost to you, and a share goes to independent bookstores.
Curated shelf
The full shelf lives on Bookshop.
Every book here, plus more on transition and after-service life, is curated under our Bookshop shop. Browsing there supports independent bookstores and helps cover the cost of running parade.rest.
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Mentorship
The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates
Wes Moore · 2010
An Army veteran and Bronze Star recipient on two men with the same name and very different outcomes. The mentorship-and-second-chances core that parade.rest is built around.
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Career
My American Journey
Colin Powell · 1995
A four-star general's memoir of climbing the US Army from a Bronx childhood. The long-arc Black-veteran career narrative — useful for anyone weighing what comes after the uniform.
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Mental health
The Things They Carried
Tim O'Brien · 1990
Linked stories from a Vietnam infantryman on what soldiers actually carry — the gear, the dead, the lies they tell to live. Still the cleanest entry to combat-trauma literature.
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Reporting
War
Sebastian Junger · 2010
A year embedded with a US Army platoon in the Korengal Valley. Junger writes brotherhood and dread at the same temperature the men feel them.
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Mental health
What It Is Like to Go to War
Karl Marlantes · 2011
A Marine officer in Vietnam on the moral and spiritual cost of killing. Reads like the field manual the military never issued.
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Transition
Thank You for Your Service
David Finkel · 2013
Finkel follows soldiers from his earlier book home to Kansas after Iraq. The cost of war told in marriages, paperwork, and small kitchens.
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Mental health
Redeployment
Phil Klay · 2014
Twelve short stories from a Marine who served in Iraq. The National Book Award winner that put post-9/11 veteran fiction on the map.
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Mental health
The Long Walk
Brian Castner · 2012
An EOD officer on three tours in Iraq and the homecoming that broke him open. Plain and uncomfortable about what comes after the bombs.
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Mental health
The Evil Hours: A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
David J. Morris · 2015
A Marine-officer-turned-journalist on the history, science, and treatment of PTSD. The accessible reference text for anyone reckoning with the diagnosis.
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Mental health
Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character
Jonathan Shay · 1994
A VA psychiatrist reads the Iliad alongside Vietnam combat veterans. The foundational text on moral injury — referenced across every serious veterans program since.
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Transition
Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging
Sebastian Junger · 2016
Why coming home is often harder than going to war. Junger argues the problem is the society veterans return to, not the war they left.
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Transition
The Work: My Search for a Life That Matters
Wes Moore · 2014
Moore on what to do with your hands after the uniform comes off. The skill-and-purpose stack written for veterans who hate the words 'find your why.'
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Disclosure: parade.rest is a Bookshop.org affiliate (ID 124112). When you buy a book through one of the links above, parade.rest receives a small share of the sale at no extra cost to you, and an equal share goes to a pool that funds independent bookstores. We choose every book on its merits — money does not move the order.