Reviews for The Endless Tour: Vietnam, PTSD, and the Spiritual Void

The average rating for The Endless Tour: Vietnam, PTSD, and the Spiritual Void based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-11-07 00:00:00 Maurice Mambro Given my own experience with PTSD; its intractable and devastating nature, I have come to believe that there is a spiritual dimension to both the damage done, which results in PTSD and in any modicum of success a person can have in recovery from it. I had had high hopes for this book given the title and the impressive qualifications of the author. It was an absolute waste of time. I would have expected the author to isolate and confront at least some of the spiritual aspects of this condition but it seems from the very brief and superficial treatment she was able to give that she wouldn't really understand "spiritual" if it jumped up and bit her, ( this despite her credentials as a pastor). She seems to equate spiritual health with adherence to a Christian structure of belief and recovery to a re adoption of that structure. I do agree with her on one thing and that is that if there is any experience on this earth likely to shatter any concept of a loving interventionist God then combat is it. In my own experience the positive that can be drawn from that experience is the abandonment of the whole "born again" fairy tale and pursuit of something more workable in this world. The best she has been able to do is to summarize the basic symptomology of PTSD that can be acquired from any basic text ( the basic text for High School students by Peggy Thomas comes to mind)and offer some homespun do's and don'ts that any newly graduated counselor could have come up with. While I don't doubt the difficulties this woman has experienced living with a veteran suffering from PTSD,the bulk of the book is dominated by a combination of self aggrandizement (the revolutionary lover) blended with a dash of the martyr and a heaped helping of the saccharine sweet maudlin emotional gunk (much of it in the form of open letters to "her" veteran) I probably, unfairly so often associate with middle class middle aged born again women of the American heartland. I had to give this book one star to get it on the chart, otherwise it wouldn't have rated that. All in all aside from the catharsis the author may have gained in the writing it was a wasted effort reading it.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-10-22 00:00:00 Sue Miles Okay, read all the other reviews [on Amazon], because they are awesome. One thing I will add to them: The author has a section about who should and should not move to Mexico. It's very realistic. I mean, we're talking heat, bugs, water that can make you wish you were dead, things that will drive the impatient up a bloody wall. Mexico isn't America! Don (I felt like we were on a first-name basis) keeps saying "If...you should NOT move to Mexico!" The picture indelibly etched in my mind came from (paraphrasing now) Don's admonishment: If you can't handle animals in the street, both dead and alive, don't move to Mexico! When I finished this book, I wanted to move to Mexico SO BAD!!! I started sort of dreaming in Spanish, what's in there still from when I studied it thirty years ago in college. That's never happened to me before.... Lots of flavor in this book. Lots of realism. Lots of very good information, things you're going to need to know that I never would have thought of. Lots of sensitivity and love for the Mexican people, too. I imagine Don as kind of the Crocodile Dundee of Mexico. I hope DH and I get to meet him in person one day....