Veteran ghostwriter and coauthor Whitney (Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
) now writes in her own voice about her brother Jim Schuler, a vet who served three tours in Vietnam and died penniless and alone in 2001 at age 53. Whitney also offers her take on many issues—such as PTSD, veterans' benefits and homelessness— affecting American veterans of wars from WWI to Iraq and Afghanistan. Whitney presents little that is new on these subjects. The parts of the book dealing with her brother and family are more fully realized, although much of that narrative, including Jim Schuler's service in Vietnam and his postwar army career, is based mostly on speculation since he had little contact with his estranged family. Whitney herself was adamantly against the Vietnam War, something her troubled brother never forgot or forgave. Whitney thus only partially succeeds in her “mission” to “find” her brother, and her account fails to meet the standard of the one invoked in the title, Gen. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway's classic We Were Soldiers Once... and Young.
8 pages of b&w photos. (May)
