David Wood

David Wood is an American journalist and author. He worked for many years as a military correspondent for The Huffington Post, covering war, veterans, and the US military over the course of decades. His reporting on the experiences of American veterans severely wounded in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2012. His book What Have We Done: The Moral Injury of Our Longest Wars (2016) examines the concept of moral injury—the deep psychological damage done to soldiers who participate in actions that violate their own moral code—in the context of the post-9/11 wars. Drawing on his extensive interviews with veterans, chaplains, and therapists, Wood argues that moral injury is distinct from PTSD and is a largely unaddressed crisis among returning veterans. The book won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Nonfiction in 2017 and was widely praised for its compassion and its contribution to understanding the human cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wood is retired from active journalism and lives in the United States.