ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA (June 24, 2020) – St. Petersburg Press has published “Invisible Wounds of War: My Redemption,” a memoir by Pinellas County resident Col. (RET.) Beverly Smith-Tillery, chronicling her treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
A registered nurse, Smith-Tillery was an U.S. Army reservist called up to serve in the Iraq-Afghanistan War. She worked as a nurse anesthetist at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where the wounded were transported for surgery.
The things she witnessed haunted her dreams, and shook her to her core, even after he retirement from the military in 2011. Eventually, Smith-Tillery found a coping mechanism by writing poetry about her experiences.
“I thought maybe if I put these thoughts down on paper, it will help me deal with them,” she explains. “So if I woke up and I had a nightmare about a soldier that I was taking care of in the operating room, who didn’t make it, I would sit down and I would write phrases about that.”
In “Invisible Wounds of War,” each poem is preceded by a short narrative, explaining the poem’s origin.
Her book is intended for combat personnel, civilian victims of trauma and all those who sometimes find it daunting to face another day.
“If they could see that I went from being absolutely crushed from PTSD to a time of hope, and coping, then maybe my book can serve a purpose,” Smith-Tillery says.
For review copies, and additional information, contact Amy Cianci at St. Petersburg Press, amy@stpete.co.