For schoolchildren, Homer’s Odyssey is a vivid story of storms, shipwrecks and sea monsters, however for many who have really seen conflict it stays the basic story of a homecoming gone flawed. For 10 lengthy years Odysseus and his crew struggled to get again to the Greek island of Ithaca. It was the “longed for day of return” that saved them rowing within the face of Sirens and Cyclopes. But Odysseus’s homecoming is not any joyful occasion. On the island the place he had as soon as been king, nobody acknowledges him. Individuals and locations have modified. Family and friends have drifted away.
Homer’s hero is just not alone in his expertise.
Whether or not they have served within the navy, intelligence group or diplomatic service, lots of our personal veterans of overseas wars have confronted related disappointment.
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In a reunion fraught with stress and doubt, even his personal spouse fails to acknowledge the wily Odysseus. Penelope addresses him as “stranger” and asks, “Who’re your mother and father?” Solely when he describes how he had constructed their marriage mattress does she understand that her husband has returned. This strained means of rebuilding belief and intimacy with one’s partner after years of separation is usually as painstaking for at this time’s veterans because it was 3,000 years in the past.
Odysseus’s son Telemachus has grown up with no father. Searching for to flee the ache of his father’s absence in addition to his mom’s anxiousness over her husband’s unsure destiny, the younger man turns to medicine at Helen’s arms. What number of of our fashionable veterans or their kids have accomplished the identical? Whereas Telemachus didn’t change into addicted, many looking for solace from the ache and anger of separation haven’t been so lucky.
Above all, Odysseus caries the burden of reminiscence. He recollects all too effectively the blood and chaos of conflict, the deaths of each comrades and enemies. Watching the lads who trusted him to guide them house devoured by monsters or crushed by clashing rocks was not a fairytale, however a nightmare. When a courtroom poet recounts the glories of battle, the previous warrior breaks down in tears of remembrance. In Odysseus we see a mirrored image of each veteran who returns house with post-traumatic stress dysfunction.
Returning to civilian life is inevitably troublesome after years of fixed worry, sanctioned violence, and anger on the callousness of destiny. Some by no means regulate. As Odysseus tells Penelope, for some conflict turns into house. His personal effort to expunge years of pent-up rage leads to the bloodbath of the suitors who’ve been pursuing his spouse. Trendy veterans haven’t any such outlet and are left solely with their doubts, anger, and stressed nights.
Homer’s Odyssey portrays the human value of conflict. It reminds us of our obligation to take care of and honor those that positioned their lives in hurt’s means on our behalf. Every veteran is our personal Odysseus. On this Memorial Day, it’s becoming to recollect those that didn’t return however save a thought for many who survived and but by no means discovered the longed-for homecoming.
David H. Rundell is a former chief of mission on the American Embassy in Saudi Arabia and the writer of Imaginative and prescient or Mirage, Saudi Arabia on the Crossroads. Ambassador Michael Gfoeller is a former political advisor to the U.S. Central Command and a member of the Council on Overseas Relations.
Each served in conflict zones and are fellows of the Benjamin Franklin Fellowship.
The views expressed on this article are the writers‘ personal.
