Preparation For The Next Life

Preparation for the Next Life explores the wide-ranging impact of war as it reverberates across communities, damaging the lives of everyone it touches. All of the characters are impacted by war in some way, but the most impacted communities are the veterans, immigrants, and American Muslims.

As the character who is most obviously impacted by the war, Skinner illustrates both the physical and psychological costs paid by those tasked with fighting America’s wars. Before the start of the novel, Skinner served three tours in Iraq and witnessed countless deaths. His PTSD makes it difficult for him to find or keep work, and he feels abandoned by his community and by his government; occasionally people thank him for his service, but these expressions of gratitude feel empty as Skinner’s present-day struggles go unacknowledged. Skinner’s mental illness and his disillusionment with society and the United States government go hand-in-hand. As his PTSD symptoms worsen, his lack of access to mental health services means that he “[doesn’t] know enough to be as scared as he should have been” (150). Skinner, like many returning war veterans, does not have the resources he needs to help himself. The war has also taken Skinner’s identity. It is revealed in the middle of the novel that Skinner’s first name is Brad, and Skinner is a nickname that he received while in Iraq. His choice to continue using this name after the war suggests that he no longer identifies with the person he was before. Skinner constantly surrounds himself with items that he brought back from the war: his poncho liner, boots, bag, war videos, and gun. Though these items reinforce his trauma, they also give a sense of familiarity and comfort in a civilian world he no longer feels he understands.

Skinner is not the only veteran impacted by his time in Iraq. In Chapter 23, Skinner finds several news stories about other veterans who have been experiencing similar symptoms. PTSD, anxiety, mania, and many other mental illnesses are seen in many of the other veterans who appear in the story. One veteran recognizes Skinner’s illness after spotting him coming out of a bar and tells him, “[T]hey have the battle skills, but do they have the civilian skills" (196). Thousands of soldiers return from war, but very few can reacclimate to society quickly or effectively.

Immigrants in the United States are also impacted by the War on Terror, regardless of their citizenship status. At the beginning of the novel, Zou Lei—an undocumented Muslim-Chinese immigrant—is detained under the guidelines of the Patriot Act. When no one tells her when she will be released or even why she is detained, she speaks with a lawyer who tells her, “They got a thing now where, if you entered the country under the radar…you’re not eligible for bail. That’s the Patriot Act" (10). The Patriot Act was enacted after 9/11 and allows the attorney general to detain any person who is “reasonably” suspected of participating in “activity that endangers national security.” While this law mostly impacts undocumented immigrants, a woman on the street tells Zou Lei that she knew a man with a green card who was detained and deported despite having legal citizenship in the United States. This law encourages discrimination against immigrants and unjustly incarcerated immigrants of varying citizenship status. The Patriot Act impacts all immigrants, but it disproportionately impacts American Muslims. Tesha Noor, a character that Zou Lei meets while she is looking for a job, tells her about a Muslim man who disappeared shortly after 9/11. The man had been unjustly detained and transferred to a prison in Texas. From there, the man was deported with no charges on his record despite having American citizenship (321).