MSI Press Blog

   This week's editor's choice is Chris Richards' book, Nothing So Broken . Book description:  In the shadow of loss, a path to healing begins. Chris Richards grew up in a small New England mill town, where life was tough and loyalty ran deep. At just 19, his world was shaken when a close friend was left permanently disabled by a devastating accident. At the same time, Chris’s father began to show troubling symptoms linked to his service in the Vietnam War—unseen wounds that would slowly unravel the man he once knew. The weight of watching two people he loved unravel under the strain of trauma and physical decline left deep scars—ones Chris carried silently into adulthood. For years, he buried his grief and fear, never imagining that one day, facing his own crisis, he would turn to their stories for strength. This powerful and moving memoir explores the enduring impact of trauma, the quiet power of resilience, and how even the most broken lives can become sources of inspi...

 This week's editor's choice is  Chris Richards' book,  Nothing So Broken . Book description:  In the shadow of loss, a path to healing begins. Chris Richards grew up in a small New England mill town, where life was tough and loyalty ran deep. At just 19, his world was shaken when a close friend was left permanently disabled by a devastating accident. At the same time, Chris’s father began to show troubling symptoms linked to his service in the Vietnam War—unseen wounds that would slowly unravel the man he once knew. The weight of watching two people he loved unravel under the strain of trauma and physical decline left deep scars—ones Chris carried silently into adulthood. For years, he buried his grief and fear, never imagining that one day, facing his own crisis, he would turn to their stories for strength. This powerful and moving memoir explores the enduring impact of trauma, the quiet power of resilience, and how even the most broken lives can become sources of ...

Courage is usually described in battlefield terms — the charge forward, the split‑second decision, the willingness to risk one’s life. But for veterans exposed to Agent Orange, courage took on a different shape. It became a long, quiet practice: the courage to live with uncertainty, to face diagnoses that arrived decades after service, and to keep building a life even when the future felt fragile. 1. The Courage of Knowing What Might Come For many veterans, the first act of courage was simply absorbing the truth. Learning that a chemical they barely noticed in Vietnam could cause cancer, heart disease, neuropathy, or Parkinsonism required a kind of emotional steadiness that few people ever need to summon. It meant living with the knowledge that: bad news could arrive at any time, symptoms might appear without warning, and the body might carry a danger planted years earlier. This is not fearlessness. It is the courage of continuing anyway — of going to work, raising children, paying bi...