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Reading Terese Svoboda: Black Glasses Like Clark Kent: A GI's Secret from Postwar Japan

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Where US soldiers are now trained to recognize post-traumatic stress disorder and offered treatment to quell combat-related distress (in theory, anyway), military personnel during World War II were told one thing: get over it. In 1946, Don Svoboda was stationed in Japan overlooking prisoners, some of whom were secretly executed due to prison overcrowding. While Svoboda managed to bury these haunting memories for decades after the war, the 2004 Abu Ghraib atrocities prompted him to detail his experiences to his niece, writer Terese Svoboda, before taking his own life. This afternoon, Svoboda reads from her new memoir, which traces the emotional minefields of her uncle's past.

– Suzanne Niemoth