Zoë H. Wool explores how the most severely injured veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars rehabilitating at Walter Reed Medical Center—whether recovering from losing a limb or sustaining a traumatic brain injury—struggle to build some kind of ordinary life in a situation that is anything but ordinary.

List of Abbreviations  vii

Preface  xiii

Acknowledgments  xvii

Introduction  1

1. The Extra/ordinary Atmosphere of Walter Reed  25

2. A Present History of Fragments  63

3. The Economy of Patriotism  97

4. On Movement  131

5. Intimate Attachments and the Securing of Life  157

Conclusion  189

Notes  195

References  217

Index  233