Never leave your dead
Subtitle: a true story of war trauma, murder, and madness
By: Diane Cameron
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 182
ISBN-13: 9781942094166
Subjects: Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945; Mental health; Mentally ill; Family; Stepfathers; Post-traumatic stress disorder; Murder; Psychological aspects; Mothers and daughters; Marines; History; Veterans; Family relationships; Biography; Case studies
Description: "Combining memoir, history, social commentary, and true crime, Diane Cameron unravels the secrets of her stepfather--a former Marine who served in China from 1937-39 and was later convicted of murder. The stark examination of her relationship with her stepfather and mother will stir public debate, as she investigates how the far reach of mental illness can consume a family"--

"In March of 1953, Donald Watkins, a former Marine who served in China during the Japanese invasion of 1937, murdered his wife and mother-in-law. After serving twenty-two years in Farview State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, he was released and eventually married again. A decade later, Donald may or may not have been the cause of his second wife's death, as well. Author Diane Cameron uncovers the true story of her stepfather, Donald Watkins. Was he a traumatized veteran? A victim of abuse in the mental-health system? Was he a criminal? Mentally ill? Or just eccentric? As she unravels this mystery, Cameron finds healing and understanding with her own struggles and history of family abuse. She discovers an unlikely collection of role models in the community of the China Marines, as they were known. Together, they help put the pieces of shared war experience in perspective and resolve the more complex issue of understanding trauma itself. With insights drawn from diverse experts such as Thomas Szasz and Bessel van der Kolk, Cameron unlocks the connection between the experience of veterans of past wars and those who deal with the war trauma today. Diane Cameron is an award-winning columnist. An excerpt from Never Leave Your Dead was first published in the Bellevue Literary Review and was nominated for a 2006 Pushcart Prize"--
Table of contents: title: Prologue: The Murder, March 7, 1953; title: My Mother's Donald; title: Getting to Know Donald; title: Out of Order; title: For God and Country; title: Missing History : Donald's Past Has a Past; title: Nuts for the Nation : St. Elizabeths Hospital; title: Semper Fi : There's No Purple Heart for Falling Apart; title: They Brought Home More than Souvenirs; title: When My Mother Told Me; title: Cold Storage : Farview State Hospital; title: The Myth of Thomas Szasz; title: Getting Help and Getting Home Again; title: Donald Crosses the Line; title: There Are So Many Donalds; title: Still Crazy After All These Years; title: Iambic Pentameter and the Meter of War; title: Never Leave Your Dead; title: The Symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; title: Resources for Veterans and their Families and Friends.