Back when I was a hard chargin’ Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps Reserve, a barber who was cutting my hair gave me this book, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character. He said if I ever went to war, that I should read this book before going, to help me survive the emotional scars. One of the things in the book that struck me was the problem a lot of vets had in dealing with the dead. Often grunts would become far more loyal to their dead comrades than to those who were still living. This … Continue reading Use of the War Dead