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The Return
The New York Times has an op-ed today that both my boss and my mother will send to me if I am not quick enough to blog it.
WASHED onto the shores of his island home, after 10 years’ absence in a foreign war and 10 years of hard travel in foreign lands, Odysseus, literature’s most famous veteran, stares around him: “But now brilliant Odysseus awoke from sleep in his own fatherland, and he did not know it,/having been long away.” Additionally, the goddess Athena has cast an obscuring mist over all the familiar landmarks, making “everything look otherwise/than it was.” “Ah me,” groans Odysseus, “what are the people whose land I have come to this time?”
That sense of dislocation has been shared by veterans returning from the field of war since Homer conjured Odysseus’ inauspicious return some 2,800 years ago. Its vexing power was underscored on Thursday, when a military psychiatrist who had been treating the mental scars of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan went on a shooting rampage at an Army base in Texas.
The question of how the veterans of the Trojan Wars adjusted to life back on the farm -- or the island, as it were -- is one that has provoked a lot of thought and was one of the questions that allegedly inspired this movie:
But what is the author's remedy for the isolation veterans feel? Tell stories.
How to commemorate the living veteran? Again, some guidance can be found in epic, the crucible of heroic mores. Old Nestor, the iconographic veteran, is a teller of many tales of the many battles he once waged. “In my time I have dealt with better men than/you are, and never once did they disregard me,” he tells the entire Greek army in “The Iliad.” “I fought single-handed, yet against such men no one/could do battle.” Although he is a somewhat comic figure, his speeches are deadly earnest; Old Nestor knows that his is the only voice to keep memory of such past campaigns alive.
One suspects such lengthy recitations are rare today. Rarer still is the respectful audience enjoyed by Nestor; impatience with such reminiscences began well before our age. “Menelaus bold/waxed garrulous, and sacked a hundred Troys/’Twixt noon and supper,” wrote Rupert Brooke, cynically, during the years leading up to a later Great War.
Today, veterans’ tales are more likely to be safeguarded in books and replicated in movies than self-narrated to a respectful throng. Detailed knowledge of the experience in which a veteran’s memories were forged is thus made common. To learn these stories is both civilian duty and commemoration. Death on the field and the voyage home — both are epic.
Oh, goodness, this is going to make for a long Veterans Day at CNAS. "There I was, no %$#@..."
Things didn't slow down upon
Things didn't slow down upon return from deployments because we were running around with our hair on fire, preparing for the next deployment, almost as soon as we stepped off the plane. I didn't experience any adjustment period until I ETS'd after 4 deployments. Ever see "Cast Away" with Tom Hanks? The last ten minutes of the movie - that's what my first month after ETS felt like.
I'm with you Schmedlap.
I'm with you Schmedlap.
And while of course the 90's wasn't 1% as bloody, it basically was nearly as busy deployment wise.
Now Dr XM. Please don't perpetuate the PTSD pyscho vet myth. Especially as you probably don't believe it yourself, unless you've changed.
As you may recall, it was debunked again and again. For Vietnam and the current...er....man made disaster.
And to mention Hasan in the same breathe as a vet.....
Hasan was a Pallie muslim with "grievances" (just ask them, they'll tell you. And tell you. And tell you) who went to the same mosque in DC where 2 of the 9/11 hijackers prayed. Connection. Yes. Let me connect the dots...oh oops...let me raise the Red Flags.
Pallie. Muslim. Grievances.
Funny. The crap he was posting and saying...if he wasn't in the Army he'd have been jailed or at least under surveillance.
Please all go and get good and extra drunk today (for me. I have to work).
Happy Veterans Day
Odysseus, eh? Have you seen
Odysseus, eh? Have you seen this book?
http://books.google.com/books?id=CEYDySjS0UwC&pg=PP1&dq=achilles+in+viet...
Two from
Two from '74
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parallax_View
Parallax View Test Film (viewer discretion advised)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ncz968ksxXE&feature=related
It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (warning - 1974 vibe)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhHODhTIvgo
"Its vexing power was
"Its vexing power was underscored on Thursday, when a military psychiatrist who had been treating the mental scars of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan went on a shooting rampage at an Army base in Texas."
I better go tell my fellow colleagues, doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners and the rest - who deal with all manner of scars, literal and otherwise - hat they ought to be careful. Apparently, we are all just on the edge of a great precipice, emotionally.....
I don't mean to be flip about such a serious topic (and, of course, we in the medical profession should be honest with ourselves about the potential mental traumas of practice), but, how can it be that job stress is the only thing, or the main factor, causing him to act as he did? You go to lefty sites and it's all PTSD all the time, and you go to righty sites and it's all Islam all the time, and, hey, come on! How about a violent, specific-to-one-person brew composed of job stress + mental illness + propensity to be drawn toward a particular, and narrow, brand of violent ideology that contributed to the mental agitation? If I may use such horrible bland words as mental agitation for the evil that men do?
Perhaps I am taking this too personally; the idea that the medical profession is uniquely prone to this type of horrific behavior. How to explain the thousands and thousands of health care professionals who deal with truly terrible things, day after day, and yet, live, for the most part, quiet, uneventful and productive lives? Am I taking this too personally?
Reminds me of the joke about
Reminds me of the joke about the difference between a war story and a fairy tale. A war story starts out "No #%*!, there I was. " and a fairy tale starts out "Once apon a time" after that there is no difference.
Andrew, I spent dinner last
Andrew, I spent dinner last evening with an old mate of yours from the Regiment - MSGT (ret) Jose Gordon. He said he saw you in the AO over the summer. He told me he had never had a vacation - for him, the best "break" is just being home with Patti for a month or two. My fiancee remarked that seemed a little unfair to Patti, which he acknowledged. He is the Odysseus who declines to come home, Bless him. v/r, JKW
Madhu, Of course it's not
Madhu,
Of course it's not doctors, and of course PTSD isn't contagious. When the Left encounters anything that doesn't match it's narrative of human nature it buries, ignores or ridiculously distorts it. I'll be surprised if they don't use this as an example of why we need the Senate to pass the Health Care Bill by Christmas.
Sadly I doubt it's one of a kind violence specific to one person. In fact, there's been a pattern of targeting or killing military personnel or bases on American soil for several years. And it's escalating. Lieberman pointed this out this morning during an interview.
And I think it will continue to escalate and the enemy will improve his "lone wolf" game. It's the success of the tactic that will drive this as a tactic.
We may want to make a valid military ID + in uniform a de facto license to carry, at least at our own posts or known places of work. Like recruiting stations.
And no, Law Enforcement can't guard us all. They are First Responders, if they are the First line of defense then we'd all better get used to open season on the uniform. And a lot of funerals. That Ft Hood cop was very brave and skilled - she went right at him firing - and was on scene 4 minutes after it started. But still 13 brave troops - mostly very young- are dead and dozens are wounded, hundreds of lives scarred and shattered.
Get strapped Brothers and Sisters. This is the new Black.
"The Return" brings to mind
"The Return" brings to mind a passage from the epilogue of "Generation Kill".
Evan Wright was sitting with Nate Fick in the stands watching the motorcade go by during President Bush's 2004 inauguration. Nate lets loose with some profanity as he sees that President Bush is fully buttoned-up in his armoured limo driving down the streets of DC, whereas Nate and his Marine Recon platoon drove unarmored humvees into battle down the streets of Iraq (it's a good thing the Iraqi's "pray and spray" instead of actually aiming their weapons).
I miss that Nate Fick. Too bad he's turned into just another 'suit" in DC pushing for another ill-advised war.
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