achilles in vietnam
So basically I read an intro to trauma studies and it was cool so now I'm reading a trauma studies book about the Iliad and it's lit my brain on fire.
The vast and distant military and civilian structure that provides a modern soldier with his orders, arms, ammunition, food, water, information, training, and fire support is ultimately a moral structure, a fiduciary, a trustee holding the life and safety of that soldier. The need for an intact moral world increases with every added coil of a soldier’s mortal dependency on others. The vulnerability of the soldier’s moral world has vastly increased in three millennia.
—Shay, Achilles in Vietnam, 15
Like, look, I know this is about the war in Vietnam but I am going to make it about the Heroides. Watch me.¢
Another a fun thing about trauma studies is that one of my professors from undergrad is a relatively significant figure, so I flip the page and [redacted], who had me reading ten pages of Cicero and Seneca in Latin every week as an second year in a classical civ course,2 is just like...there.