Jonathan Shay - Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character

No one who has read this book will ever read the Iliad in quite the same way.

Gary Kamiya, San Francisco Examiner

His book is a cogent, painful reminder that in the broken lives of Vietnam veterans we are still paying for what was distinctly unoriginal about that war as well as for its peculiarly original evils.

The New Yorker

Thank God for people like Jonathan Shay, trauma surgeons in their own right who can bear the truth about war.

Gail Caldwell, The Boston Sunday Globe

Jonathan Shays book is one of the most fascinating accounts of the Vietnam War and one of the penetrating analyses of the warriors experiences.

Lt. Col. Arieh Y. Shalev, M.D., (Res.) IDF, Chairman, Dept. of Psychiatry, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

For a combat veteran who has no formal training in the classics, Achilles in Vietnam is a bolt of lightning cracking through the ages. What was then is now, and I felt that in the authors analysis. For literary and historical scholars it is a challenge in its insight. For the psychologist and psychiatrist it gives me pause to wonder, what the hell have you been doing all these years? Pick up this work of art and use it.

Rod Kane, author of Veterans Day

Poetry, psychiatry, and horror are joined in this remarkable book.

Daniel Ford, author of Incident at Muc Wa

Jonathan Shay has made an important and valuable contribution not only to the clinical body of work regarding PTSD and its treatment, but to the literature of the Vietnam War. This is not only a book for clinicians, but for veterans themselves, their loved ones, and all who wish to understand the Vietnam experience

Robert B. Rheault, Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret., Founder and Director of Outward Bound for Veterans Suffering from PTSD

Achilles in Vietnam poignantly illustrates both the parallels and the divergencies of two wars separated by twenty-seven centuries and their impact on the lives of the soldiers who fought in them. Must reading for mental health professionals who work with Vietnam veteransor veterans of any war.

John V. Sommer, Jr., Executive Director of the American Legion and Vietnam veteran

An audacious, erudite, and above all, profoundly humane book by an exceptional psychiatrist who illuminates the suffering of the Vietnam veterans he treats and the human experience of combat and grief in Homers 3,000-year-old poem the Iliad. Achilles in Vietnam rattles the heart but bestows hope.

Gloria Emerson, author of Winners and Losers

Achilles in Vietnam has a definite place in the classroom, offering students a bridge to the past. Shay makes Homer accessible to the modern psyche by demonstrating that many seemingly foreign aspects of the Iliads narrative are alive and well in any soldiers experience.

Bryn Mawr Classical Review

A heart-rending look at the permanent ruin war can wreak in any age.

Kirkus Reviews

Achilles in Vietnam is destined to become a modern classic, just like the ancient classic upon which the book is based. This is because the book gets to the essence of the veteran, and represents a delightfully brilliant integration of history, art, psychiatry, and science.

Erwin Randolph Parson, Ph.D., The Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy

Shay has done a remarkable job of comparing and contrasting the Greek soldiers before Troy and U.S. grunts in Vietnam. This is a profoundly human book and a strong, realistic argument against modern warfare.

ALA Booklist

A summary gives no sense of the incredible power of this book. Shays account of [the veterans] pain overflows with understanding.

We all lost our innocence in Vietnam. No one who reads this book will ever forget how radical the loss was.

Mens Journal

aCarefully contrasting the legend of Achilles with his patients debilitating traumas, Shay makes us understand that there are broad universal truths in the murky crossroads of morality and war.

Washington Post Book World

Shays voice is informed and impassioned. Achilles in Vietnam should be required reading for all present and future government and military leaders. It is a valuable and inspirational text for all citizens.

Philip K. Jason (U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis), Magills Literary Annual, 1995

If you want to read a book with great insight into the literature of war and a great understanding about the trauma and shattered lives of American combat soldiers, Jonathan Shays book is a must.

Tom Barden, Director of American Studies, University of Toledo

Once in a while a book comes along which is truly therapeutic. Achilles in Vietnam has integrated for me many diverse elements, weaving and woven through the fabric of my own life and practice.

E. Deborah Gilman, M.D., Women in Psychiatry column, Psychiatric Times

Order, meaning, and morality are fundamentally issues of religion, spirituality, and transcendence, and Shays book brings a number of them to the fore.

T. R. Hobbes, Professor of Old Testament, McMaster Divinity College

Also by Jonathan Shay

Odysseus in America:
Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming

ACHILLES
IN VIETNAM

Combat Trauma
and the Undoing of Character

Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D.

SCRIBNER

Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character

Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D.

SCRIBNER
New York London Toronto Sydney

SCRIBNER
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 1994 by Jonathan Shay

All rights reserved,
including the right of reproduction
in whole or in part in any form.

First Scribner trade paperback edition 2003

SCRIBNER and colophon are registered trademarks
of Simon & Schuster Inc.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases,
please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales:
1-800-456-6798 or business@simonandschuster.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

13 15 17 19 20 18 16 14

The Library of Congress has cataloged the
Touchstone edition as follows:
Shay, Jonathan.
Achilles in Vietnam : combat trauma and the undoing of
character / Jonathan Shay.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. War neuroses.

2. Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975Psychological aspects.

3. Homer. Iliad.

4. Post-traumatic
stress disorder.

5. VeteransMental healthUnited States.

6. WarPsychological aspects.

I. Title.

RC550.S53 1994

616.85212dc20 93-32034

CIP

ISBN 0-689-12182-2
0-684-81321-1 (Pbk)

eISBN-13: 978-1-439-12492-5

ISBN-13: 978-0-684-81321-9

Quotations from The Iliad by Homer. Copyright 1974 by
Robert Fitzgerald. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division
of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

The Chosen and Histories, poems by William T. Edmonds, Jr.
Copyright 1993 by W. T. Edmonds, Jr. Used by permission of
the author. All rights reserved.

Quotation from Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders, Third Edition, Revised. Used by permission of the
American Psychiatric Association.

I respectfully dedicate this book to the men of the Veterans Improvement Program (VIP) who have generously taught me and entrusted me with their experiences of war. In the larger sense they are the authors of this book.