Soft Spots: A Marine's Memoir of Combat and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder [Hardcover]

Clint Van Winkle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 3, 2009

A powerful, haunting, provocative memoir of a Marine in Iraq—and his struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in a system trying to hide the damage done

Marine Sergeant Clint Van Winkle flew to war on Valentine’s Day 2003. His battalion was among the first wave of troops that crossed into Iraq, and his first combat experience was the battle of Nasiriyah, followed by patrols throughout the country, house to house searches, and operations in the dangerous Baghdad slums.

But after two tours of duty, certain images would not leave his memory—a fragmented mental movie of shooting a little girl; of scavenging parts from a destroyed, blood-spattered tank; of obliterating several Iraqi men hidden behind an ancient wall; and of mistakenly stepping on a “soft spot,” the remains of a Marine killed in combat. After his return home, Van Winkle sought help at a Veterans Administration facility, and so began a maddening journey through an indifferent system that promises to care for veterans, but in fact abandons many of them.

From riveting scenes of combat violence, to the gallows humor of soldiers fighting a war that seems to make no sense, to moments of tenderness in a civilian life ravaged by flashbacks, rage, and doubt, Soft Spots reveals the mind of a soldier like no other recent memoir of the war that has consumed America.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This memoir of combat in Iraq, and the post-traumatic stress disorder that followed, contains more literary touches than most, and its an admirable effort. Marine sergeant Van Winkle (who earned an M.A. in creative writing after returning from Iraq) emphasizes that every marines desire was not to spread freedom but to come home alive, and while the book describes some firefights, there are even more incidents of Van Winkle and his comrades blazing away at vehicles or distant figures only to discover they had killed civilians. After discharge, fearful memories and violent rages drove him to seek help from a surprisingly unhelpful V.A., but the passage of time, a few sympathetic therapists and a loving wife set him right. The text jumps back and forth between Van Winkles war experiences and postwar life, when marines from his unit, some dead, reappear to badger him. Most readers will forgive this exercise in creative writing techniques because it presents a vivid picture of what many vets endure. (Mar.)
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Review

"Nothing gets held back in Soft Spots, Clint Van Winkle's account of his two years of duty as a Marine sargeant in Iraq...lacerating honesty, the narrative is dreamlike and surreal." --The Washington Post

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition (March 3, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312378939
• ISBN-13: 978-0312378936
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #104,392 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #61 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an important book--and a real page-turner which will help civilians understand our vets better, March 11, 2009

By 

N. Ferguson "Two, Daisy, Hannah, and Kitten" (Ohio) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Soft Spots: A Marine's Memoir of Combat and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (Hardcover)

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This slim book feels like something all Americans should read. The author paints a portrait of his experience as a Marine in Iraq which is fascinating, chilling, horrifying, and at times even briefly funny. He succeeded in helping me better understand both the mindset and the experiences of young Marines coming home from the war.

The author vividly describes his life with his Marine buddies and comrades, painting a picture of personalities, places, events, and dilemmas... and eventually the emotional reactions which begin to filter through. It's an incredibly powerful piece of writing, and a real example of "courage after fire". I'm grateful to the author for sharing both his experiences and his process of beginning to face how the war has changed him (and hundreds of thousands of other men and women).

I think this book is especially valuable for those who love a Marine (or soldier) serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, since it is unflinching in sharing an inside view of a military culture which rewards toughness and suppression of emotions. While the episodes of violence, fear, rage, and horror are at times difficult to read, they may be very helpful in understanding what the person you love has lived through. Even the harsh language and vulgar humor of the men in this story are helpful in picturing their lives and world view. The episode in which a pathetic dog is repeatedly shot at by a fellow Marine for absolutely no reason (and neither the author nor anyone else intervenes to save it) was very powerful for me, especially knowing that the author owns a yellow lab at the end of the book. (The moment in which his dog nudges his arm to ask for a pat on the head was one of the first moments when it began to feel as if the author was really home.) The author shows real courage in sharing how difficult it has been to live with his experiences in Iraq, and how difficult it is even to be sure what happened when looking back through the fog of war.

At the end of the book, I was really grateful for the moment of clarity the author experienced, realizing that he is not alone with his experience. I am sure this book will succeed in helping family, friends, and fellow citizens be better equipped to help and support veterans through the long process of coming home. Mr. Van Winkle, thank you for your service to our country both as a Marine and as an author.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The box released the land" when he opened it, March 7, 2009

By 

Rebekah Sue Harris (West Haven, CT USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Soft Spots: A Marine's Memoir of Combat and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (Hardcover)

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I should probably begin by saying that Clint Van Winkle, the author of Soft Spots, is as much of a hero as most of the other US Marines with whom he served. Not more and not less. Those of us who haven't served seem to idolize our soldiers, but Van Winkle seems, in turn, to not want idolatry.

There are as many stories about fighting wars as there are people who are involved in war. Van Winkle wrote about something that's been whispered about for centuries, even today: mental illness. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a severe, debilitating anxiety that develops after a person is subjected to terrifying events, such as rape, witnessing a murder... or being part of a war. PTSD occurs, as per a recent [2009] study, in approximately 17% of US armed forces (all branches).

Van Winkle talks about, early in his story, opening a sandy box of mementos he brought back from his most recent tour in Iraq, a land that's mostly desert. "The box released the land when I opened it," he said. The velocity of his mental sandstorms varied. They had no rhyme, reason, or mercy.

His sandstorms occur randomly throughout the book. In most books, this jumping around would be unnecessary and, in fact, annoying. However, why should the reader be able to sift through the story neatly when the author could not?

The job was to "carry out your mission, and keep your honor clean." Marines leave no man behind - but sometimes they had to. A Forward of the book defined "Soft Spots" as the remains of a US Marine who had died in combat. The Marines fell onto religion as they hadn't as civilians, searching for something to get them through everything. The Marines were told to write Death Letters before the mission began: a Death Letter would be the letter that would be presented to the loved ones of a soldier who died in combat, as a means of closure for the family. With all that, and the death and destruction and disgusting conditions and the loneliness, it's surprising that the percentage of troops coming home with PTSD isn't higher.

Clint Van Winkle may not have received a million medals, but he told the story of his view of the war, and of his demons and hallucinations, eloquently. He told of his monsters, his uncontrollable drinking, his trials and tribulations with the Veterans' Affairs bureaucracy, and of the girl who stuck by him. His words were concise and full of description.

He has a wonderful command of the written word and of language, and it's a darned shame that his skills are needed to explain something so ugly.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A firsthand account of the real amount of national treasure bled out into the soil of Iraq, March 1, 2009

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Soft Spots: A Marine's Memoir of Combat and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (Hardcover)

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My wife Kathy is a counselor with specialized training in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and she did her internship at a local veteran's center. As the significant other, I have been exposed to a great deal of pillow talk about the problems of veterans in general and those with PTSD in particular. I also accompanied Kathy to a daylong seminar where the topic was PTSD in war veterans. While all cases are of course different, there are many similarities in their cases.
Van Winkle experiences spurts of anger, memory flashbacks that are altered in many ways, he self-medicates in the form of significant alcohol consumption and keeps weapons close at hand. All these are behaviors fairly typical of war veterans suffering from PTSD. What is different about this book is how well Van Winkle describes his experiences, after leaving Iraq he graduated from college as an English major and pursued graduate studies in Wales. He learned those lessons well, his descriptions of combat missions and patrols in Iraq and his relationships with his buddies are told with an understated calm characteristic of the best writers.
There are several disturbing aspects to this book; the first is how many places Van Winkle had to go before he receives anything approaching quality treatment for his problems. The second is the realization of how much emotional, psychological and monetary treasure this nation has bled out into the soil of Iraq. These accounts will continue to be settled for decades to come and the cost will continue to be very high.