If you’ve spent even 20 seconds in the last year feeling sorry for yourself, you need to read Thank You for Your Service by David Finkel. When you put it down, you will be overwhelmed with gratitude for the ease of your life.

This book follows men who have returned from serving in Iraq with the Army 2-16 Infantry Battalion. They are victims of PTSD and traumatic brain injuries, and while they look “normal” on the outside, they are battling demons that threaten their lives every day. To say these lives are heartbreaking is an understatement. The amount of psychic work it takes for these men—and their wives, who remember the men they married…the men so different from those who came home from Iraq—to regain a stable life is astounding. And it’s not surprising that many do not make it. Much of the book covers the suicide rate for veterans and the Army’s efforts to care for and protect those at risk, with limited success.

I’m no longer sure I could say the words, “Thank you for your service” to a veteran. For too many, it’s a shallow, confounding and almost insulting phrase, in light of the lifelong devastation their service rendered.

Sometimes heartbreaking reading is required reading.