Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character

Shay works from an intriguing premise: that the study of the great Homeric epic of war, , can illuminate our understanding of Vietnam, and vice versa. Along the way, he compares the battlefield experiences of men like Agamemnon and Patroclus with those of frontline grunts, analyzes the berserker rage that overcame Achilles and so many American soldiers alike, and considers the ways in which societies ancient and modern have accounted for and dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder---a malady only recently recognized in the medical literature, but well attested in Homer's pages. The novelist , who has written so affectingly about his experiences in combat, calls Shay's book "one of the most original and most important scholarly works to have emerged from the Vietnam war." He's right.

Thomas E. Neven Marine Corps Gazette Shay's astute analysis of the human psyche and his inventive linking of his patients' symptoms to the actions of the characters in Homer's classic story make this book well worth reading for anyone who would lead troops in both peace and war.

Jon Spayde The Utne Reader ...eloquent, disturbing, and original...

Herbert Mitgang The New York Times A transcendent literary adventure. His compassionate book deserves a place in the lasting literature of the Vietnam War.