Believe neither the gloom and doom ...nor the infantilization in popular lore

books:


	• Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming Jonathan Shay Scribner, 2003 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 9 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Returning Veterans

As those of us who live and work with war trauma know, for many, the Vietnam War is not over.Jonathan Shay writes:
"The Vietnam veterans that I have worked with were treated shabbily by both the political right - who scorned them as 'losers'...and by the political left, who held them responsible for everything vile or wrongheaded that led us into the war, was done during the war, or came after the war."
I encountered a similar situation in my work with Russian veterans of their war in Afghanistan. Dr. Shay's book provides his readers with valuable insights into the challenges facing soldiers returning from a controversial war.His book is a must read for those who care about the mental and physical health and well being of our returning veterans.
Anngwyn St.Just Ph.D. Director of the Arizona Center for Social Trauma and author of " Relative Balance in an Unstable World:The Search for New Models for Trauma Education and Recovery ( 2006 Carl-Auer Verlag, Heidelberg)

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Support our troops . . .

Shay's decades of work with Vietnam veterans, as described and explained in this book, helped formalize the syndrome of behavior that came to be known as post traumatic stress disorder. It afflicts soldiers living in mortal danger for long periods of time, leaving them afterwards in a near-permanent state of hyper-vigilance. They have suffered what Shay characterizes as a moral injury, which like other disabling war injuries prevents them from returning fully to civilian life. He calls it a moral injury because what has been injured is the ability to trust - even those closest and dearest - and living in the civilian world is impossible without it.

The ancients, Shay argues, understood the psychological dangers of combat for those who fight, survive, and return home. The combination of both cunning (necessary for survival) and the predictable errors in judgment among those who both give and take orders are reflected in the character of Odysseus, who returns with his men from the Trojan War in Homer's "The Odyssey." There is, Shay asserts, good reason why his name means literally, "he who makes trouble for others." The loss of all of his men and then the bloodbath that follows his arrival in Ithaca, as he eliminates Penelope's suitors, illustrate how violence and death follow him long after the war is over.

The fault lies not in individual men, Shay argues, but in a kind of military command that treats them as replaceable parts of a large fighting machine, instead of as groups of soldiers who train and fight together and then are demobilized together. The communal aspect of this supportive group process helps men and women make the return safely and helps them overcome the aftermath of war's traumatizing impact. Again and again, Shay argues that it is our responsibility as citizens to be sure that those who have risked their lives to serve in the armed forces are provided in turn with the vital services they need to re-enter the world they left behind and to live once again at peace with themselves and others. His argument gives new and urgent meaning to the phrase "Support Our Troops."

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Believe neither the gloom and doom ...nor the infantilization in popular lore

The author is an expert on the return of combat veterans. The literary references are terrific. For instance, the 'Siren Song' cliche' is generally misunderstood. The Sirens are NOT singing flowery or sentimental or erotic or false lyrics to weary sailors. No, the story goes that only THOSE WHO WERE IN COMBAT would recognize the Sirens' stories as exactly truthful, therefore hypnotic. (I did not know the importance of the particular mythology until this book described the context.) That and much much more...

Finally Understand

After reading it and puzzling over it for a couple of months I can honestly say I understand what I have put my wife through for the last 36 and one-half years.

Every combat veteran needs to read this book. Just for the understanding if nothing else. Oh, if it is not too late, get some help too.

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Myth and the Human Experience

This book powerfully uses myth to capture the reality of the human experience. Myth helps us place our experiences, whether on the battlefield or in everyday life in context. Shay masterfully weaves ancient and modern into something that is very beautiful and very human.

Another great book about Homer's Odyssey as it relates to the adolescent experience is Rethinking Adolescence: Using Story to Navigate Life's Uncharted Years by Jay D'Ambrosio.

[...]

reviews: page 1, 2

In this ambitious follow-up to Achilles in Vietnam, Dr. Jonathan Shay uses the Odyssey, the story of a soldier's homecoming, to illuminate the pitfalls that trap many veterans on the road back to civilian life. Seamlessly combining important psycho- logical work and brilliant literary interpretation with an impassioned plea to renovate American military institutions, Shay deepens our understanding of both the combat veteran's experience and one of the world's greatest classics.

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trauma

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