The Honor Was Mine: A Look Inside the Struggles of Military Veterans
By: Elizabeth Heaney MA LPC / Narrated By: Joyce Bean
Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
Third time I’ve listened to this; Third time I’ve teared up
Nope, don’t expect the graphic in this book, and don’t expect a stance on war. Also don’t expect author and counselor Elizabeth Heaney to get all into the nitty gritty details on what to call the men and women who serve: From the get-go she tells us how members of each branch of the military are referred before stating that, for ease and to keep individuals anonymous, she’ll be referring to all of them as “soldiers”. Rather, go into The Honor Was Mine as one woman’s journey as a civilian into the world of the military and military families.
It starts with her life in Arizona which has suddenly become a shambles. She’d been in private practice for eons, but with her life falling apart around her, she was looking to take on something new. Enter the world as a counselor at various military bases, where she’s always on the move. The military constantly rotates counselors on base out so that personnel, the clients, don’t become dependent on any one counselor. She’s given an allotment of six visits per client, and if they have deep-rooted issues, needs for longer term care, she has to cough them into the VA system. It’s pretty harsh, and it kinda gets depressing.
At each new base, she’s shied away from as there’s a DEFinite stigma attached to seeking therapy, but she goes to great lengths to extend herself, whether she’s just saying hello to people, or she’s hanging around the motor pool, making herself a known quantity, one with open hands, firmly shut lips, no threat to anyone, but always available. Soon, she’s reaping the rewards of her indefatigable efforts, and men and women start opening up to her. Soon, she’s hearing about what they said, saw, had to do, when they were Down Country. Or she’s trying to help them be people who are NOT numb and uncommunicative when they’re around people they love, the people they dreamed of whenst they were at war. Whether they can’t talk to their spouses, are totally disconnected from their kids, or they’re the spouses who are struggling to try to live with the new people their mates came back from combat as, Heaney is there for them all.
A lot of the time, this all comes across as Therapist-Speak: The “And how does that make you feel?” type of statement. The reframing if you will. But Heaney is just so gosh danged good at what she does, and she’s not afraid to let a pregnant pause turn into a loooong stretch; she’ll wait the person out until they get to that one thing they’ve been too afraid to say or admit to. So while I rolled my eyes a trifle here and there, I was usually at the edge of my seat by the end of each encounter, because these are wounded men and women, wounded families.
I wound up being as heartbroken for each of the individuals she counseled as she herself wound up being. With only six visits, there’s only so much you can do, and so much of what she did was breaking down walls and showing they could trust her. And usually, their trust was dashed as she’d have to refer them to someone else for long-term services, or she was rotated out. It takes its toll on them, it took its toll on her, and it most CERtainly takes its toll on the empathetic listener. You want the best for these individuals, and then come to find out that the military elite don’t. After a while, we come to see that this being there for others as they suffer causes Secondary PTSD in Heaney as she experiences firsthand the panic attacks, the terror, the confusion that those coming back from America’s wars caused.
Both Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are treated, and this is a very sympathetic look at service members and their families, no matter what your views on the wars are. As a matter of fact, it’s easier for a civilian to have fondness for the military than it is for the military to have any fondness for rabble rousing and ill-mannered civilians. Heaney not only comes to respect service members greatly, but back on the outside she misses the order and the civility she finds on bases.
All this is a very emotional ride, but it’s kinda sorta furthered, kinda sorta hindered, by Joyce Bean as narrator. She’s well-respected, a seasoned narrator, but my GOD is she a voice-juggler or what?!? She goes to greeeeat lengths to vary her voices for every. single. person, and she effects (And mangles) many a different accent. Her voices for men are all growly, and they come off as flat. I know this is a trait of hers as I’ve listened to other audiobooks she’s narrated; the tones are NOT flat because the service members are feeling numb and emotionally dead. Nope, it’s cuz Joyce Bean just stomps on male voices like crazy.
Here it is, Veterans Day 2020, and this is an AWEsome audiobook to listen to. It doesn’t talk down to anyone; it’s hiiiiiighly respectful. And?
It makes you remember just how blessed we are as civilians never to have to see some of the stuff others have seen…
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