Odysseus in America
Page 1
Also by Jonathan Shay
ACHILLES IN VIETNAM
Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character
Odysseus and the Sirens1
SCRIBNER
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Copyright © 2002 by Jonathan Shay
Foreword copyright © 2002 by Senator Max Cleland and Senator John McCain
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DESIGNED BY ERICH HOBBING
Text set in New Caledonia
Manufactured in the United States of America
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Shay, Jonathan.
Odysseus in America: combat trauma and the trials of homecoming / Jonathan Shay; foreword by Max Cleland and John McCain.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
1. War neuroses. 2. Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975—Veterans—Mental health—United States. 3. Homer. Odyssey. 4. Post-traumatic stress disorder. 5. Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975—Psychological aspects. 6. Veterans—Mental health—United States. 7. War—Psychological aspects. I. Title.
RC550.S533 2002
616.85′212—dc21 2002075817
ISBN 0-7432-1156-1
eISBN-13: 978-1-4391-2501-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-1157-4
0-7432-1157-X(Pbk)
Permissions acknowledgments appear on page 331.
CONTENTS
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Preface
1. Introduction
PART I
UNHEALED WOUNDS
2. Odysseus Among the Rich Civilians
3. Pirate Raid: Staying in Combat Mode
4. Lotus Land: The Flight from Pain
5. Cyclops: The Flight from Boredom
“LAWLESS BRUTES”
CUNNING
“AND KNOW NOT ME”—LOSS OF IDENTITY AND BOASTING
6. Odysseus Gets a Leg Up—and Falls on His Face: The Workplace
7. A Peaceful Harbor: No Safe Place
8. Witches, Goddesses, Queens, Wives—Dangerous Women
9. Among the Dead: Memory and Guilt
THE DEAD (TRY TO) REPROACH THE LIVING
“I WON’T FORGET A THING”—KEEPING FAITH
Timmy
ANYONE CLOSE WILL BE HARMED
IRRETRIEVABLE LOSSES
10. What Was the Sirens’ Song?: Truth As Deadly Addiction
THE LANGUAGE OF TIMES THAT MAKE A WORLD
MEMORY UNCONNECTED TO COMMUNITY
TOTAL CERTAINTY IS JUST AS DAMAGING
11. Scylla and Charybdis: Dangers Up, Down, and Sideways
12. The Sun Gods’ Beef: The Blame Game
WHY ODYSSEUS’ ADVENTURES ARE AN IRONIC ALLEGORY
13. Above the Whirlpool
GUILT AND GOOD CHARACTER
14. Calypso: Odysseus the Sexaholic
15. Odysseus at Home
LIES, TESTS, DISGUISES
SLAUGHTER OF THE INFAMOUS SUITORS
COLDNESS AND CRUELTY TO NEAREST AND DEAREST
TRAUMA AND ODYSSEUS’ CHARACTER
HE LEAVES—AGAIN!
PART II
RESTORATION
16. Introduction
AVERSION TO RETURNING VETERANS IS AN OLD STORY
DAMAGE TO CHARACTER—INJURED THUMOS
ARISTOTLE AGAIN—HUMAN IS POLITIKON ZŌON
17. From the Clinic to the Wall
STAGES OF RECOVERY
A TRIP TO THE WALL WITH VIP
18. Lew Puller Ain’t on the Wall
PART III
PREVENTION
19. Introduction
20. Preventing Psychological and Moral Injury in Military Service
COHESION—THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN COMBAT
Why Does Cohesion Matter?
Cohesion, from the Point of View of Ethics …
Unit Associations—A Neglected Resource
TRAINING
Training, from the Point of View of Ethics …
LEADERSHIP
Leadership, from the Point of View of Ethics …
21. Odysseus As a Military Leader
THE TROJAN HORSE
SUMMARY OF THE CHARGES AGAINST CAPTAIN ODYSSEUS
ACHILLES, ODYSSEUS, AND AGAMEMNON
22. Conclusion
THE CIRCLE OF COMMUNALIZATION OF TRAUMA
PURIFICATION AFTER BATTLE
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO “BE HOME”?
TRAUMA STUDIES AND OTHER FIELDS OF KNOWLEDGE
A NEW ABOLITIONISM
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
Appendix I: A Pocket Guide to Homer’s Odyssey
PART ONE (BOOKS 1-4): A HOME WITHOUT HUSBAND OR FATHER
PART TWO (BOOKS 5-8): ODYSSEUS STARTS THE LAST LAP FOR HOME
PART THREE (BOOKS 9-12): ODYSSEUS TELLS HIS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND
PART FOUR (BOOKS 13-16): FATHER AND SON RETURN TO ITHACA AND ARE REUNITED
PART FIVE: (BOOKS 17-20): STRANGER AT HOME
PART SIX (BOOKS 21-24): VETERAN TRIUMPHANT
Appendix II: Information Resources for Vietnam Veterans and Their Families
Appendix III: Some Proposals
OBSOLETE ASSUMPTIONS BUILT INTO THE CURRENT MILITARY PERSONNEL SYSTEM
SOME SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS
HOW WE GET THERE FROM HERE
Notes
Bibliography
Index
FOREWORD
BY U.S. SENATORS
MAX CLELAND and JOHN MCCAIN
Those of us who have witnessed, taken part in, and suffered the tragedies of war know that the ancient Greek epics offer compelling insights into our own experiences. In the Iliad, an epic of war, and the Odyssey, an epic of a veteran’s attempt to get home, Homer speaks as one who has “been there.” As veterans of the Vietnam War, we appreciated the clarity and utility of Achilles in Vietnam, Dr. Jonathan Shay’s first book, which put into words what we as veterans have always known: Homer’s story of Achilles matters.
Now Dr. Shay has done it again. In Odysseus in America, he uses the story of Odysseus to examine another layer, revealing what it means to return from war to a safe civilian society. Dr. Shay’s call to protect our troops from injury, and make them more formidable to the nation’s foes, takes his vision to another level. He hits the nail on the head by proposing to compel American military institutions to create and protect trust, and he sets forth certain key results that must be achieved: positive qualities of community in every service member’s military unit; competent, ethical, and properly supported leadership; and progressive, realistic training for what military service members actually do. If we achieve such results within our military, we will prevent not only psychological injury, but physical casualties as well, because these three fundamentals are also combat strength multipliers.
As part of our work in the U.S. Senate, we both serve on the Armed Services Committee. Although we come from different parties, we are in agreement with the treatment outcomes that Dr. Shay seeks from the combat veterans he serves in the Department of Veterans Affairs. As veterans, we endorse the goal of trust he proposes for all service members. The laws of nature did not force our present military institutions on us. These institutions are man-made and can be transformed
to better serve our nation and its military servicemen and -women.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank the Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio Study and Conference Center, for direct support for the early preparation of this book. I thank Marine Manpower and Reserve Affairs and the U.S. Naval War College for support of research that contributed substantially to the concepts in this book relating to prevention of psychological and moral injury in military service.
Four groups have been both my teachers and supportive community during all or part of the preparation of this book: the clinical team and veterans of the Veterans Improvement Program (VIP) of the Department of Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic, Boston; the VWAR-L internet discussion list; the CLASSICS-L internet discussion list; and the First Friday Defense Lunch, an entirely unofficial group that meets monthly in Washington to analyze and promote beneficial changes in the U.S. armed services.
The worldwide collegium of classical scholars has been large-spirited and kindly with this amateur beyond any call of duty. Perhaps their long experience in dealing with late adolescents has given them so much patience with me. Without their work collectively, and their help individually, this book could never have been. My debt can never be fully repaid.
Over the eight years of its preparation, an enormous number of people have helped me with expansive generosity. I can thank by name only a small fraction. My gratitude is not bounded by the list below. In keeping with the nature of this book, the list is alphabetical:
Karl Ackerman, Mark Adin, Gary Allord, Professor James Arieti, Colonel Carl Bernard, U.S. Army, retired, Nancy Bernhard, Major General Robert R. Blackman, Jr., USMC, Gillian Blake, William F. Boomhower, Mark Bowman, Mike Brittingham, Steven L. Canby, Professor Domenic Ciraulo, Michelle Citron, Vicki Citron, Corky Condon, Professor Erwin F. Cook, Lieutenant General John H. Cushman, U.S. Army, retired, Colonel Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., USAF, W. T. Edmonds, Jr., Lieutenant General Bob Elton, U.S. Army, retired, Jack Farrell, Helmuts Feifs, Commander Rabbi Robert Feinberg, USN, William J. Filipowich, William J. Finch, Professor Lydia Fish, Lisa Fisher, Professor Henry Flores, Chaplain Donald R. Forden, Professor Eugene Garver, Mary Garvey, Professor Leon Golden, Rear Admiral Kevin P. Green, USN, Diana Gregory, Sally Griffis, Bruce I. Gudmundsson, Lieutenant General Michael W. Hagee, USMC, H. Palmer Hall, Donald Hines, Admiral James Hogg, USN, retired, Robert “Dr. Bob” Hsiung, Lieutenant Colonel William F. “Toby” Hughes, USAF, retired, General James L. Jones, USMC, Professor Terence Keane, Lieutenant Colonel Faris Kirkland, U.S. Army, retired (deceased), General Charles C. Krulak, USMC, retired, Colonel Robert E. Lee, Jr., USMC, retired, Mark Lewis, James Lynch, Jack Mallory, Jonathan Matson, Major General James N. Mattis, USMC, Bill McBride, General Edward C. “Shy” Meyer, U.S. Army, retired, Sue Michmerhuizen, Dr. Thomas L. Milbank, Captain Daniel E. Moore, Jr., USN, Professor William Mullen, James Munroe, Warren K. Murray, Professor Gregory Nagy, Lieutenant General Gregory S. Newbold, USMC, Monte Olson, Ed Palm, Perseus Digital Library, Ralph Peters, Dale Peterson, Major Greg Pickell, USANG, Colonel Mark Pizzo, USMC, retired, Gunnery Sergeant H. John Poole, USMC, retired, Captain Ike Puzon, USN, retired, John Rakes, Lieutenant General John E. Rhodes, USMC, retired, Chet and Ginger Richards, Tom Ricks, Roy Ringel, Michael W. Rodriguez, Professor Amélie O. Rorty, Joseph W. Saltzman, Major General Robert H. Scales, U.S. Army, retired, Alan Scheri, Jim Schueckler, Lieutenant General Terry Scott, U.S. Army, retired, Professor Stephen Scully, Hannah Yael Shay, Samuel Zvi Shay, Henri Shay-Tannas, Bruce Shirk, Dennis Spector, Franklin C. “Chuck” Spinney, General Donn Starry, U.S. Army, retired, Judee Strott, Reverend Ray Stubbe, Tom Sykes, Professor James Tatum, Richard K. Taylor, John Tegtmeier, Harry Thie, John C. F. Tillson, Edward “Ted” Toland, Vice Admiral Pat Tracey, USN, Lieutenant General Bernard “Mick” Trainor, USMC, retired, Lieutenant General Richard G. Trefry, U.S. Army, retired, Professor Lawrence Tritle, Lieutenant General Walter F. Ulmer, Jr., U.S. Army, retired, Major Donald Vandergriff, U.S. Army, Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper, USMC, retired, Michael and Michele Viehman, Professor David Sloan Wilson, Professor Donna Wilson, David Wood, Piers Wood, Colonel Mike Wyly, USMC, retired, Chris Yunker.
PREFACE
The Iliad may have been a fiction, but the bard sang the truth. By comparing veterans’ stories to the story of Achilles, in Achilles in Vietnam I showed that what Homer sang about—particularly betrayal of “what’s right” by a commander and the deep human attachment between battle comrades—cut close to the experiences of real soldiers in real war. I pointed out that the surface story of Achilles is about war itself, all war, and will be valid as long as we have war. The Iliad is a classic, not because it’s on college reading lists, but because it is so vividly truthful about this persisting and terrible human practice. In fact the veterans’ words have helped the professors hear the poet’s words afresh.
The poet also taught those of us in psychiatry and psychology to hear things in the veterans’ words that we had not previously attended to: the moral dimension of trauma and the dreadful, rabid state of the berserker, which Homer shows with such fidelity when Achilles “loses it” after Patroclus is killed.
This book is an obvious next step. Homer’s Odyssey has sung of a veteran’s struggles to get home for more than two and a half millennia. Let’s take Homer at his word and see what we can make of it.1 The Odyssey as a whole—but most vividly the fantastic adventures of Books 9-12—may profitably be read as a detailed allegory of many a real veteran’s homecoming. Time and again Odysseus shows himself as a man who does not trust anyone, a man whose capacity for social trust has been destroyed. This is the central problem facing the most severely injured Vietnam veterans. Odysseus stands for the veterans, but as a deeply flawed military leader himself, he also stands for the destroyers of trust. Homer’s Odysseus sheds light—not always flattering light—on today’s veterans and today’s military leaders.
I invite the reader to see that real veterans’ psychological and social homecomings cast new light into the Odyssey. No single “true” interpretation of the Odyssey trumps all others. Here I expand the appeal that I first made with Achilles in Vietnam: that when reading Homer, we take seriously combat soldiers’ and veterans’ actual experience as an added source of interpretive insight.
I was completely surprised by the tide of support for Achilles in Vietnam among professional military people. The book made a strong pitch for the prevention of psychological and moral injury in military service, and for changes in U. S. military culture and practice that would promote prevention. As an unknown VA psychiatrist back in 1993, I had been unable to recruit a single active-duty military service member to comment on the manuscript before it was published. I figured I had no hope of getting a hearing from the people on the inside.
An early review of Achilles in Vietnam in the journal of the U.S. Army War College, Parameters, changed that: “Were it in the reviewer’s power, no officer would be allowed to swear the oath of commission until he had read this book.”2 Two Commandants of the Marine Corps have put it on their professional reading programs for All Hands in the Marine Corps. I have met privately with two successive Marine Corps Commandants and an Air Force Chief of Staff; a Secretary of the Navy invited me to give his guest lecture in the Pentagon. Heady stuff! The invisible company of the combat veterans standing at my shoulder when I speak gives me missionary courage to address a roomful of generals and admirals. The veterans don’t want other young kids wrecked the way they were wrecked. The fire in my belly for prevention burns hot and hopefully will shine light in every chapter of this book.
I cannot presume to speak for or about all veterans. But I do know that the veterans I have the privilege to serve in the Department of Veterans Affairs clinic in Boston want me to do this work. They remain, despite their terrible psychological injuries, proud Americans who want the armed services to attract the best young people in the country, and for those young people to flourish.
So this book comes into being as the first one di
d: a labor of love that joins Homer’s great epic with the lives of American combat veterans to give them the chance to cast new light on each other. And it continues my missionary agenda to convince the American public to care about how military units are kept together, how they are led, and how they are trained.
So let us begin …
ODYSSEUS IN AMERICA
1 Introduction
“Must you have battle in your heart forever? The bloody toil of combat? Old contender …”
—Odyssey 12:132f, Fitzgerald1
“I wish I had been untrained afterward … reintegrated and included. My regret is wasting the whole of my productive adult life as a lone wolf.”
—Jim Shelby, Vietnam veteran2
“Doc, you’re f——ing crazy.”
—One of my patients, a former Army Airborne sergeant, veteran of four Vietnam combat tours, upon hearing that I was going to lecture on prevention of psychological injury at the United States Military Academy at West Point
Homer’s Odyssey is the epic homecoming of a Greek fighter from the Trojan War. Odysseus’ trick of the hollow horse got the Greeks inside the walls of Troy, a feat that ten-to-one superiority in troop strength had never achieved. He was the very last fighter to make it home from Troy and endured the most grueling travel, costing him a full decade on the way. Odysseus’ return ended in a bloody, triumphant shoot-’em-up. It is now more than thirty years since the majority of American veterans of the Vietnam War have returned home—physically. Psychologically and socially, however, “many of us aren’t home yet,” in the words of one combat medic.3
My portrait of the psychologically injured combat veteran is colored by respect and love. However, I shall conceal none of the ugly and hateful ways that war veterans have sometimes acted toward others and themselves during their attempts to come home and be at home. To the ancient Greeks, Odysseus’ name meant “man of hate” or “he who sows trouble.”4 Indeed, some veterans have sown trouble in their families. No one should ever hear from his mother, “You’re not my son!” or “Better you died over there than come home like this.” Yet veterans with severe psychological injuries have sometimes heard these terrible words.