February 2, 2007

Achilles In Vietnam

On January 16 of this year, back in Minnesota from Iraq, a young Marine hanged himself with an electrical cord. What's particularly troubling is that he'd begged the local VA hospital several times to be admitted and treated for suicidal depression and psychological injuries from combat, but was refused, only to be put on a waiting list. A symptom, no doubt, of a deeply disordered system. One can hate the war — and, properly, one does — but what about the warrior? How do the rest of us relate to combat veterans? How do they relate to us? And what are our responsibilities? To understand this problem better from the point of view of the combat veteran I turned to Dr. Jonathan Shay, a psychiatrist at a VA hospital in Boston, and the author of Achilles in Vietnam and Odysseus in America. Jonathan expresses powerful and original insight, as well as deep feeling for the combat veteran. I learned a great deal talking with this remarkable man and I hope that in listening you do too. Total runtime of an hour and thirty three minutes. Peace!