Feb 26

Feb 26 Getting a Read: Final Salute

It’s my firm belief that when a person recommends a book to me, they’re handing me an inside look at their soul. In this series, “Getting a Read,” I try to uncover truth about books and their recommenders.

THE RECOMMENDER

Stacy Saxon, an officer in the United States Navy and friend of mine since middle school. We laugh that the Navy seems to send her to wherever I’m going next, or at least that’s been the case for the last five years. Sadly (and excitedly!) soon she’ll ship out—and unfortunately, I can’t follow her to the open seas!

HOW TO READ IT

With a box of tissues next to you. Definitely pick this up if you've known a service member who's died in active duty. Even if you mourn a vet who died after service, likely you will relate to the stories in this book. But whether you are closely connected to the military or not, pick this book up as soon as you have the time and emotional space to experience the stories of people who witness trauma as a part of their everyday. Prepare yourself and lean into your own resiliency to make it through this text.

REVIEW: Final Salute by Jim Sheeler

I kind of cheated to put this book on the blog—I asked Stacy if she minded me writing about it here. I read this book on her recommendation for my other job as a loss and trauma researcher. Last semester, the Live Through Loss team was in a research and development phase, trying to understand the threads that tie loss experiences together. I was deeply interested in a new term I’d recently learned: vicarious trauma. It seemed to me there was something important about this particular kind of trauma and I was on the hunt to find out as much as I could.

I wanted to examine what happens when people become overburdened by those they are helping. This kind of trauma can happen to anyone, but it most often appears in the helping professions: divorce attorneys, first responders, hospice workers, social workers, etc. But a person can experience vicarious trauma simply from hearing an overwhelming story about another person’s suffering. This kind of trauma didn’t happen to you, but you can still be burdened by it.

I was talking to Stacy about this one day over dinner, and she knew exactly the book to give me.
”There’s a whole class of people in the military who confront this issue all the time,” she said. ”It's the casualty officers—these are the people responsible for attending to the needs of the families of service members who don't come home.”

Being largely unfamiliar with the military apart from what I’ve learned through my friendship with Stacy, I know of casualty officers only peripherally. This group is often made up of commanding officers, but mostly they have no prior connection to the deceased. They may or may not have seen combat, they might hold desk jobs, be fresh out of school, or nearing the end of service. Whoever they are, they one day get a call to become the person who knocks on the doors of the next of kin of the service member who will never come home.

On first glance, it would be easy to mistake this book for a collection of stories about the deceased. In a way that's exactly what it is. Their remembrance is what brings the people in these stories together. But the true backbone of the book is the narratives of the casualty officers.

Each chapter focuses on the days and weeks after the loss of a service member, making this book uniquely suited to inform my work on loss and trauma. This time frame, the Acute Loss Period, is our particular focus at Live Through Loss. It was no surprise to see the stages we’ve known about for years play out in this book. The physical experience of the families was raw and real, highly physical, and viscerally emotional to read about.

It's hard to imagine, unless you've done something similar, what it's like to carry a burden like this for people. The casualty officers talked of feeling as though they knew the deceased, even when they didn't. Some report a particularly special bond with the families that remains long after their year of service is over.

This book repeatedly referred to the necessity of storytelling. One family spoke of their son, who felt it was his life’s mission to tell his younger brother about their dad whom he’d never met. Marines continually articulated the need to narrate what happened, going so far as to say that repeating the story helped the feelings surface and the story become real. It was held throughout the book that narrative was a way to keep the fallen alive and among those they left behind. What a validating gift it was to read this when I was knee-deep in research last semester—we’d already identified this need for narrative in our research.

I’ve told Catherine’s story elsewhere on the blog, so I won't repeat it here except to say that it remains for me the most powerful image of the book. Another powerful story was the story of a Lakota community holding a 5-day vigil for a fallen Marine. The 12 Marines sent to stand watch over the body stood at the four corners of the teepee the body was laid in where the Marine’s spirit communed with the spirits of his ancestors. The Marines supported the needs of this family, holding what I would call “sacred presence” to honor the deceased and his community.

Whether it meant holding a 5-day vigil with a Lakota community, or arranging for a family to see their son and husband's body carried off the plane, these casualty officers made it happen. And just as Stacy said, it took a toll on them. Carrying that much emotional weight caused stress, confusing grief, and ongoing headaches. The central figure in this story is Major Steve Beck, one of the casualty officers who's so good at his job, he’s done it for countless families over the course of his career. He spoke of a need to compartmentalize in order to make it through the work; to rely on faith, and rest where possible, to gather energy for new heartache.

It takes resiliency to work in the helping professions. It also takes knowledge and skill to maintain your resiliency and continue doing your job. My work with Live Through Loss is, in part, to help people learn the right balance and practice it daily. This book was an integral part of my research into loss narratives. It affected me deeply; my crusty self even shed a tear or two at times.

Jim Sheeler's book is not without its faults. It’s important to note, as he does himself near the end of the book, that this set of stories highlights only the best of the best. In short, it’s no given that the military attends to its community members with this level of care. Sometimes, and even too often, things get overlooked. In this account though, we see a group of people trying to do their best to honor those who have fallen and care for the people they’ve left behind. These casualty officers do their part to bring the human element to the machine of the military.

I hope you’ll choose to read Final Salute at some point in your life. Make a little emotional space before you do, I'm convinced most will find this a harder, more taxing read than I did. But I know you'll be rewarded for the choice to include it in your reading journey.

THE RECOMMENDER IN REVIEW

In this text, I see echoes of the unfailingly kind Stacy I've known since middle school. Even when we were young, she was the first to jump in and help anyone who needed it, no matter what scrape they had gotten themselves into. I see Stacy's strength and passion for service throughout the pages of this book. I'm grateful for her friendship, and I’m particularly grateful she brought this collection of stories into my life.

WHERE TO FIND IT

You can find this book anywhere books are sold. I read a hardback copy and truly enjoyed the experience primarily because of the pictures printed in the middle of this book. I'd recommend this particular reading experience. Because it is a rather singular topic, likely it will be tricky to find. Try ordering it from a place like The Wild Detectives. Be prepared to purchase this one rather than borrow it from the library or a friend, if you find yourself interested and ready to read it.