Book Review: Out of the Darkness

​It is interesting that I read Out of the Darkness by Rich LaMonica shortly after finishing Damn the Valley and on Veteran's Day. This novel follows a fictional soldier, Bull, who is fighting in Afghanistan. We meet each of his team members and several enablers (those who help the team) along the way and discover who they were before they joined the military, what happened during this tour, and the consequences when the tour was over.
​
Although this is a fictional story, LaMonica uses these characters to help others understand the realities of war - and what soldiers face even when the bullets stop flying. My big takeaway is that our soldiers need and deserve better mental health services, and we, as a people, need to do everything in our power to support them, both while they are fighting and when they return home.