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AUTHOR Walter, James A. TITLE "Achilles in Vietnam" and the Humanities Classroom. PUB DATE [Nov 95] NOTE 15p: PUB TYPE Viewpoints (Opinion/Position Papers, Essays, etc.) (120)

ED7- PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. DEsL,IPTORS *Classical Literature; Higher Education; *Humanities; *Twentieth Century Literature; History; *Vietnam Veterans; *

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the book "Achilles in Vietnam" (Jonathan Shay) in relation to 's "Iliad" and the need for society to accept the (Dnsequences of veterans experiences. Classical allusions to the epic are incorporated into the studyand U.S. experience of the Vietnam War. The paper advocates student "ownership" of literature study and permitting students to"humanize" the text by allowing and legitimatizing diverseinterpretations. The paper maintains that only by suchhumanizing attempts can the humanities be made relevant to students' lives. (EH)

Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that canbe made * from the original document. Achilles in Vietnam and the Humanities Classroom by James A. Walter, Sinclair Community College

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Achilles in Vietnam and the Humanities Classroom

by James A. Waiter, Sinclair Community College

If we fail to see that we live in the same world that Homer lived in, then we not only misunderstand Homer; we misunderstand ourselves. The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only adding something better to it. If, as I believe, one of the functions of tradition is to convey a sense of our perennial nature and of the necesssities and values that are the foundations of our life, then it follows that, without a live tradition, we are necessarily the prey of fashion; we have no choice but to emulate in the arts of 'practical men' of commerce and industry whose mode of life is distraction of spirit and whose livelihood is the outdating of fads. --Wendell Berry, "The Speciali=ation Of Poetry," STANDING ey MoRos

In 1934, Atheneum published without a great deal of fanfare an unusual book entitled All:HILLES IN VIETNAM: COMBAT TRAUMA AND THE UNDOING OF CHARACTER Its author is an unusual man by the name of Johathan Shay who holds both the M.D. and the Ph 0 who works for the Boston Department of Veterans Affairs

Outpatient Clinic asc.. psychiartrist, who teaches at Tufts Medical School, who trains staff for the New England Shelter

for Homeless Veterans, and, finally, who,in his spare time, communicates with his fellow classical scholars on the classics

discussiin list the Internet The boothas already been

remaindared and, I thcr1 , can still be purchased from the

2s.s1 shelf :aials.ue let in its brief shelfli'e, whi h too1p....tlishing practices than it dses

:% ;-;t

tOth ald ed,:cation

few .-e.ews recei%ed us s.f inc,ct' a BEST COPY AVAILABLE Walter--Achilles in Vietnam

"a fascinating book ... on modern and the archetypes of human struggle. And on top of that it says something that is directly meaningful to the way many of us live our lives. Remarkable." --Robert Olen Bulter, Pulitzer Prize winner

"shows how war can ruin and persist and writes withlove and respect for his patients whose full recovery isstill uncertain. ACHILLES IN VIETNAM rattles the heart but bestows hope. --Gloria Emerson, National Book award winner

"Group loyalty and support were vital to individualsin both groups Cat Troy and in Vietnam], while themajor difference involved grief work and the image of the enemy. This is a profoundly human took and a strong,realistic argument against modern warfare." --Wm. Beatty, in BoOklist, April 1,1994

"Shay is eccentric in the best sense of thatword, and his ideas are thought-provoking and frequentlyinsightful." --W.D. Phrhart,in Va Q Rev, Autumn, 1994

Well, just how c-,.ccentri. is Dr. ...-::hay? You'll have to decide for yourself. He tell=. u=, that "a number of years agoI was struck by the similarity of th,.,Hir Ethe Vietnam veterans] war experiences to Homer's account of Achilles inthe ILIAD.

The epic gives center stage to bitter experiencesthat actually do arise in war; further...Homer has seenthings that we in psychiartryand psychology have more or less missed...." cACHILLES IN VEETNAM .]:ince all further quotesof Dr. Shay are from this book, only pages. numher-.4will br,.. cliven.)

Shay realic..=d, hc-inq hr,th and a scholar, that his perceptions right not be acceptedreadily t-0/ experts in either .,,.:Dr1.11. problem in tryind to

..;ith pav.-.hological associT-tt eplc poelh .7,1d

bl-oughJ a onl old 5ut then, we

.-pecienced 7uch In .--Jur (71.-Js'Iroom

con':Ince T.ont.-:mpor the ti Walter--Achilles in Vietnam

"present the ILIAD His solution, as e:,:plained inhis book, was to as the tragedyof Achilles. I will not glorifyVietnam combat veterans [he writes] by Unkindthem to aprestigious 'classic' making it sexy, nor attempt to justifystudy of the ILIAD by exciting, modern, or 'relevant.' Homer's poem does not mean whatever I want it to mean."(xx) the ILIAD So he "brouight Cthe vets'stories] together with promote a deeper not to tame, appropriate, rco-opt them but to to be understanding of both, incr.=,asingthe reader's capacity the disturbed by the ILIAD rather thansoftening the blows of this book is veteran's stories." (xxi) His " claim throughout concerning the that the ILIAD can be legitimatelyread as a text text must be human experience of cnmb,=..t." (qr.') The pnint is the And in true to the ep..rience; theymust illuminate each,other.

brindinq the two together,Shay.found that veterans and of what is nonveterans could also ba broughttogether by means

called a "communalizing eperience." he feJund was Interestingly enough hoe alsofound that nothing I believe, we entirely new quite the same idea, their worlds withthe want out. students to Zr,-:+aas th..,/ compare text and the text,in worlds of other :.perience verifies the ,-,.lationship betweenthe turn validates th. e Thi=s "ownina" and real e.h.e.-1..nc., .11 Lnow,is the keY to

to oros;e the The main medical roiit ofACHlLLE Id VIETNAM i hay:, theirterrib1.:1 and .leed cw .crept..d by the soc y in whichthey

tt to4 WalterAchilles in Vietnam 4

consequences of the yptPran=,'experiences in fighting a war we, by and large, do-not want toacknowledde. Shay tells us that

"healing from trauma depends uponcommunalization of the traumabeing able safely to tellthe story to someonewho is listening and who can be trustedto retell ittruthfully to others in the community." (4) My very lay definitionof

"communalization" is thr:kt it mPansto take a unique orprivate the larger experience and have it ....ccPpted(or legitimatized) by t.o praise, public. The public's response'isnot to condemn' nor to say that that necesarily, the privatP r-Ict,but to hear it and hear what act was indeed a very humanact. "Homer helps us to to tell us aboutgoing many veterans havebPPn trying desperately Shay's book ztrP==P=the importance of artwhich is community relating to invididualthrough a work of

indeed the work of humananitie-4eduration. Vietnam is compared andcontrasted with theILIAD,in

discussing such areas as how wardestroys thetrustworthy social special comrade, order of the mind, the griefat. the death of a communalization of grief, thP=,nldie.,,r'=. rage andgoing' berserk,

.=ind di=-1-lonorinc-, the enemy,deprivation of honor, destiny, the Greekdods and the suffsr by civilian=, luck and ronvinrP= powers that te. !w-,;.tn= c.F thi= book. She nur acute observe,- the psi,:logv ' soldiers.

-:iPP.'e(iatlon .-greatl:

1.:31)

no+ 10,2,..e It 77:tE's%

of ideas with....0 a r to inL.:,porie Lialt..,r--f=ichilles in Vietnam S

He points ofthe enemy and our understandingof the Greek gods. due to the out that many times the t.=,nsionsin our culture are contrasts between the Bible andGreek thought; Debased images of the enemy are veryold in our culture, dating from the Bible. By contrast, the ILIADemphatically portraysthe enemy as Worthy of respect, evenhonor. (103)

And As products of a biblicalculture, most veterans believed it is nobler to striveto be like God thanto want come from NOT to be human. However, all of our virtues to a god.:.; cc..Jrage being gods: Generosity is'meaningless is meaningless to a god.... Our virtues and ourdignity arise from our mortality, ourhumanity--and not from any success in being God[or god-like]. (.95-:36".' like the (The whole point of humanism,afterall, is not tcrbe

gods.) advanced, Since we tend to see our owncivili2=ttion as being particularly his emphasis on we tend to thinklightly of Homer's, if we see Homer'sgods all the gods. However, Shay believes that as symbols of 1..Dgether as a metaphor forterrifying social power, armies and institutions that acql)ir,=, tremendouspower, such as then Lake Homer's the social institutirm war itself, we can

world more seriously (1.50): pnwer-holders in armies cancreate Like mortals mad. situatio1;7, that destroy gr.ndcharacter and drive whether behaving Homer pr,i.sents the gndssimply as power, dangei-ous power--andat well,-.%r badly. Fe...r hum,,,in=.. the most same time the powerminc,t able to conferheart-swelling ac'tinQ tenefic,snce-- always other Huuian beings together as a socialinstitution. 153) :orrston of noble characcer, Homer EnOWS] tha vile and tr::insformation of sow,thindclood Into something thr-- this power: the cr.,11 do thi,:.; fic:XJ.2 The (1'34; ca.n drown a human incatas,tro7:.hic moralluck.

errritory of :1,-,annd Horoer',.: text sp.rings. A whole for bad into ilew when we re;].kd his.70:JdE as metaphors dO "-,ziits __41 WalterAchilles in Vietnam 6

ILIAD's human leaders,I presume becausethey were personi,lly at risk on the battlefield.(154) In Vietnam men died from thedistraction of higher officers in control of firesupport, of helicopter extraction, of resupply, ofbackup companies for reconnaissance patrols. (160) suffer from In other words, these men sufferedjust as the Greeks and the gods' inconsistency,unreliability, inattentiveness, distractibity. But the Greeks, as Shay pointsout, had

a distinctive therapyof purification,healing, and reintegration that was undertaken asa whole community. We ...the distinctivecharacter know it as Athenian theater. of a of Athenian theater came'rom the requirements democratic polity made upentirely of present orformer for combat veterans. soldiers to provide communalization returning ..The Athenians communallyreintegrated their participation in ritualsof the warriors in recurring find ...The soldier returningto a democracy must theater. accepted some way to restore Ca sense of commonly The combat r-zoldierwho has been through moral principl. I have betrayal, grief, gt4ilt, and ragecomes home aFury. theater was thecommunity's speculated th=tt th,=, Ath,.nian into the principal means of his receptionand reintegration social sphere as Citizen.(230)

_ni our Shay believes that what ismissing to a largedegree community. He culture is a ther;..tpy und,,,rtakenby the whole in our believes, however, that such atherapy is available call narrati,le. culture: the therap/ of storytellind or what we heals Shay uses much of his book toexplain "how narrative to personality changes,!-low narrativeenables the survivor

rebuild the r6ina-, character: if the survivor Narrative heals personalitychandas oril.; f'=.r ficlds or to be Several traits ac'e recuiredfor the Trustworthy to =trenoth The 1_,Tnecsroust SorciE' withou hea' the The li-itc2ners mu:T. he strono enou.,7,:h 'aithut

1",=, Walt.=,rAchilles in Vietnam 7

experience some of the terror,grief, and rage that the Thi= i= nne meaning,after all, of the word victim did. listener there is no compassion. ... Without emntinn in the communalizatin of the trauma. narrator. To achieve trust, listenersmust respect the from judgment. Respect also means refraining community that Trauma narrative impartsknowledge to the The aloneness listens and responds to itemotionally. Cof the victim] isbroken.,.. Major recovery, however,requires that personal The friends who dia,d narrative be p=.rtirular,not general. but particular huuan in Vietnam were notfriends in general beings. All who hear shouldunderstand that noperson's suffering can te measuredagainst any otherperson's suffering. of Narrative can transforminvoluntary reexperiencinc of the events,thereby traumatic events into memory to reestablishing authority overmemory....The task is and reenactandto grieve. remember rather than reli\,e audience for We must all strive tote a trustworthy like to thinkthat-Aristotle victims of abuse of pow=,r. I made tragedy the had something like thi=in mind when he for citizens in ademocracy. ... centerpiece of education character is Trauma narrative= =how usthat our own good luck. vulnerable to d,,,,,,trurtinnby b=td moral the normal adultwith the Trauma narratiw--- cnnfronts into fragility of the bogy Thf,,se storiesbring mortality view. ... tragedy. We need a modern eql4ivalentof Athenian our mortality,to savor and Traded/ brings u= to rhpri=h attachment to Tradn-dy inclini=.s usto prefer embrace it. promised fragile mortals whom we nve...and to refuse immortaLity. all citizens andtherefore, for The th,=,atA-rin .=Wr-f,,,,n= wa= for However, we wt= arommunal experience. 1.nt'I'nds and citizenship wa= a realize that as fr as thetotal population, have a communal minority of all tne people. If we are to and re=trh all nur q-2:-perience thatwould be trtriv rommIrnal thaf, that of ills-tii-.ution much-'asta,- f.such F:ther than thoseoft"-le mass media ft.e in troades.

communO.',anc-4 retlt.i.civeness

,and diver of 014_ALJAI.i'D;1.-i WalterAchilles in Vietnam

perhaps the only interests in both the makeer;.,nd the receiver.), It is intitution available to usis the all-pervasiveschool. the theater inAthens. the classroom that comesrlosest for us to who becomes the And it is the teacherin the classroom playwright. teacher is As we all know but wantsomeone elseto state, the Accessible," in the kapert (Lola Brown,"Rendering Literature and Emrys Evans. READERS, TEXTS, TEACHER!;.ad. Rill Corcoran the teacher withthe 93-118). The sye-tem and thee.t14dents credit subject at hand. "correct knowledge andopinion" about the place of learninothe Before one can learnthe text--or even in read the tea-cher, asthe text--the students learnthe teacher--to authority in frontof--block lo--thetext. 1) what is tobe read enc. The teacher controlsthe class: and learned. 2) the structure and sequenceof things taught most euccessfully Thus, ideally, it isthe teacher who can that ::..hay talks establish the necessarycommunal experience students to ownthe about. It is the teacherwho enable-4 the the textrelevant (a material underdiscussion--by making atudents, or,in other terrrible and a hadword,I know) to the in what waytheir words, by gettingthe students to see like those eeperiences or possibleexpereincee. may be individual student's--aswell present inthe i..ext. For it is the instead of the cleee'e--eeperience- of thetet..,

!-.1e classroomstudy teec.fle,''d, whichsheulel s,t the core their tudente W.Jst beenabled to flrofit .re:411

with the te..:t in -.heclassroom ie initself antagonistic eften claeereem e -perience Walter--Achilles in Vietnam

the teacher assumes in to student "ownerhin"berause of the role dispenser of front of the class: therole of expert and Instead of information--might Isay, of "holy"information. to find waysto move being the expert, theteacher needs trI try sharing responsesto the beyond the confines ofthe classroom in text. guides our As teacherr, we need torealize that whatever read as one, they are choices in the tE,Xts werequir=, r lEc.,=,e-el to and not thestudents. denerallv and most likelyour connections thee works. We must Students are left to"Qt_0=,5=7," Why WA, choor.;e stage orbattlefield and pull out of being atthe center of the

validate students'connections. The teacher has toaccept andlegitimatdze diverse students' acceptanceof interpretations. In rder to foster accept thediversity rultural diversity, theteacher has to forms of response. .41thin the class andprrlvide fc.,r different whole, don't talkof "Primary or elementaryteachers, on the terms.... They are their classroomexperiences in whole-class (Lola Brown, trained to track the progre=of each individual" REAERS, TEXTS,TEACHERS, "Rendering LiteratureAcre===.ihle," in We need tolearn to do ed Bill Corcoranand Emrys Evans, p 11(...0.

that. gets in the way: As we all know, eventhe Administration the Ld,o1.dical positionhanded down Eby The domLnant in the classv'oom, ;,:th 1s. lcc tne wor .;dr,11-stran") acti';E: pacrt ofthe oo rath.,r "Writing &,-.1.1 John Dixon, stu,11,1,ts' lives CLesli,::: Str&ttr,,. p 1:32' 7-,tTaioing,"in PEADER5,

tha Nioverlientto c,pitallz,.2 rile to 71-07,u.:Th It for

.E.n!E,._:2 of

i BESLERPJLALVABLE W;Iter--Achilles in Vietnam 10 community students have withand within theschool, thus destroying what we are tryingto do: humanizethe humanities. Sometimes we are But to get back to our roles asteachers. students. too busy dispensinginformation to listen to our According to Shay, "all toooften...our modeof.listening This is caused deterioraL.es into intell,;ctualsorting..." (4) . THINKING by "bitting" as explainedin Richardson'sbook CRITICAL of the problem of IN THE OPEN ACCESS COLLEGEand is at the heart the our dspensing holy writ whichhas 'esulted in teaching the chronologically-based curriculumoften used in listening destroys huMani ties. Shay tell:. :4=sthat this kind of the trust necess--v forec-Atablishing communalization rProgniz,; that it iseasier to dispense Of course, -.1e have assigned them information than to askr.tud.;nt=.. ;bout what we mat.;rial well. A real to read because theyhav not r.;;d thp; to read the problem is how to getun;.-ophi,';ticated students even of most translationsof the material, considg,ri the poetic form aloud to them inclass, gradually ILIAD. Perhaps one can read it Yet, taking more increasing the amount theyread out of class. fewer works. We time to read togetherand di=.c14;-.=mean,--, doing is more important: have to come to someconclusion as to what by which students covering the holy wr-it hrproviding eperiences them can make useof whrk=t hf ;rt w ;re teaching I a worthy of'discu=,:sion in Th.; =ubject of Shai'=boo-, P-1"..--m,

t pT3,pci,r ta pN,.sc.:nt L'17 he

f to undrstand

roa/ ln

c;:tiT be adarimar hare rice notdoctor-:. '4alter--Achilles in Vietnam 11 in working too closely with a severeproblem. We are teachers, not healers. To use Shay's methodolgy in theclassroom, we need to follow these thrs=,e steps:

Pre.=,nt a problem --one perceived by studentsto be experienced by or experience-able to students

II. Understand the people with theproblem

--use narrative

--in Shay's case the.veterans: their own accounts, Tim O'Brien, THETHINGS THEY CARRIED the ILIAD arising from the classand III. Open up to collateral issues from the texts. mind the In using this methodology wemust always keep in urvivor to following -.pints: 1) " _narrative enables the s need to rebuild the ruins of character"(1:=:0), 2) there is a and S) the establish communali=aLion, ce-wimunity of listeners, point of humanities educationis the creation ofsuch

communities.: As Shay says: surround With what !'ind of human beingsdo we want to live among ourselves for our own flouri=hing? If we want to with, as equals with strength andcandor, among people 'fr="--, and g=,n=,rous the understanding Euripides =ays, of human of trauma can form a =olidbasis for a =cience There is, of course, noscientific basis for rights. rather than by preferring to be surr'oundedby free equals I would not be a cowering SICYCS Jhen Lincoln wrot,,,,,"As ,=t master,"he did not claim any -21,awe, so I would not 1-(..=, This vision of rational compulsion for whathe w,-14ld not te. an tathicalchoice and cannot a dood I if for a huriian ta,ind is.. be alled forthby b= c("E:rc=d. Itclin ediAcation, and ..aelcolngappeal. .4u,anLte'E (=ithen,z. Ita .tha can u,aa

classm to establi,:h e. ppri,I,ncesof comn.unalizatio».

:hut ,icYdn off c.-ice,un,:iit.7..tion WalterAchilles in Vietnam 12

experiences. In much th,=, riie wey and with much the same ,..ffert, the dssiging of the humanities curriculum to emphasize the acquisition of content (known as bitting) often done through chronological presentations has shut down or blocked off the

=..tudents' "owning' their learning. The humanitiesby the fact of the r being the humanities--should emphasize the communalization experience

As Athanasios McL41ek15 .qtates in his recent book BEYOND

UTILITY:! IEERAL FDYCATInN FnP.A TD-HNnLOGICAL AGE: "We can hire someone tn te=,.rh us whirh fnrk to use and how to dance the quadrille, tut politeness Ls something one has to internalize for oneself." (111)

We have to ht-,,ip =t14dent.= both internalize and externalize their value,=, and thJ,vx,.11; nf the diverse cultures in which they find themselves: that to !=ee the supportive relationships between the priv=ttrz. and the pubi i. c , thA, individl4a1 and the community. A Ms Saunders informed the classics discussion group on the inter.net last spring that she had just taught. a course entitled "Modern Issues Ancient Times." Topics and texts she used included: War "Thi= Trojan )omen": Feminism

"Lysistrata".: justice "Antigone': Pornography classical statues and, I roighi-. add, whole lot of (21nnerwar.a):

"nn Cld Acle" tv cice and EducatHon T i cf an

A= this

1_,ppercla,ia not

f :p 1.1:210E "1.r pre:olems of hos-3.nind c.ur wellac-1 modecn te to

.ohL' .,tu._1:1 in ,7.11,I,Cting

ti WalterAchilles in Vietnam 13

create thecommunali=ation e periences tothe materiel and thus and the teachingof s.,perience so at the heartof the humanities the humanitie-e. usefulness, not The point is the humanitieshas real uses and impact on our livesin just Kultural usec,. The humanities can such as making us specific ways, not justgeneraliied ways, parties. As better educated or moreintersting at cocktail

Professor Moulakis states: to find conveniently We do not read greattexts in order how to and what to livefor. formulated precepts about learn to become Rather we make somethingout of ourselves, We intricacies of thehuman predicament ;,:.rticulate, aware of the the predicament, by listeningto the voices of as our own understanding, 41ot of past in a mode ofconversational prescriptive acceptance orrejection. (57) understand the By using classic worsof art to helpthe public only cause alienation specific nature of socialproblems that not pc4blic and privatecharacter, we in sOci=tr,1:-ut can alsr, ruin caring about theconditions that cen promote apublic attitude of Shay's words,"that will create such problems, anattitude, in psychological injury as support meaures toprevent es much to do my It is [, he says,my] duty as a greater duty toprevent." ciii best to heal, but have an even not While we as teech.zrs ofthe humanities ere professionally capable professionally capable ofhealing, we e.'s,

m,=,.kinci the publiccare. wor' ino of his bool-entitled "War HT!.a a sectiontoward2 the end in which hepoi,-)t out the harm Is Fr_-,:=" matter to enem-/a-x, inanimate o La': picturing "1-he the He quotes ,on.1Aausawitz to te " reacts and if one ip '-unimat e object ;-1:--t 1H:1:d !Le 4

'.1,-,it,=,c--AchLlles in Vietnam 1,

mistake to doesn't conside.- t:-.,at fact one ma/ te led from one

another. He then states that the VietnamWar was directed by sophisticated "managerial" scientists ofthe 1950s who talked

about the war in terms of "mod..,ls forthe production ofwarfare," and "Profit maximi=ation," Rnd"economic models of attrition crossover" (that is, "when the enemy'srate of losses exceeded th-g, enemy could no londer the rate of r....,p1,,Ic'-.m.g,nt, =.--% th::,t "to 'afford' to continue tha war"). Soldier,=, in the field grew

believe chat ail that mA.t.t.=.red tomiIiil.ary commanders was that

thincs looked gor-,d on F-..ip,r, tera:;=,=,it was the numbers on paper t-hair superior tht thq:, c.ffirer=. man.r-ig,=,d..They also saw that

officers did not taste th.--, ha=ards ofwar." (2c_,5)

I sometimes see us teachers ofthe humanities assoldiers in

the field who must put up withadministrat.ive commanderswho students state t.hat the doal of ourinstitutions 1. to =.=.1-ve more do not taste the at less cost, and I know these administrators as h;::::trHs ofth,=. classroom. I sometimes see my students not taste soldiers in .the field who think th,=-Ir tig,arh,g,ra also do

th,=. hz.zar,-,,g ,--,f ricgkind .zducation. eduation. War is not a ind'ustiial p.-oc,,,..and neithe,- is