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Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character. By Jonathan Shay. New York: Atheneum, 1994. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xxiii, 246. $20.00.
Although it has been twenty years since the Vietnam War ended, approximately 35 percent of all Vietnam combat veterans still suffer serious psychological wounds. The causes of psychological casualties and their possible remedy or prevention are explored in an important new multidisciplinary study. Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character is a wise, compassionate, and original book about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and a sobering reminder of war's cost.
Author Jonathan Shay has merged his psychiatric experience counseling veterans with Homer's Iliad to produce a social, psycho-historical, and literary interpretation...