As a journalist for Antenna TV, I reported on the “Achilles in Iraq” conference held at the University of Missouri-St. Louis in April 2004. All photographs included in this article were taken by me during the event.
— Nancy Biska
Press Release: Greek Ambassador Mr. George Savvaides opens Conference on Greece’s contribution to understanding war
The Greek Ambassador to the US, Mr. George Savvaides, opened an unusual conference at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. The conference was called “Achilles in Iraq” and its purpose was to provide a new perspective of current events in Iraq, as well as the Vietnam war, through the eyes of the Greeks. The results were stunning.
“War is a world phenomenon, which permeates history, cultures, values, ideals, and human relations”, said Mr. Savvaides in his opening remarks.
Indeed, the ancient Greeks lived constantly with war and with the consequences of war for the soldiers, for their families, for their societies. The earliest, and to many the greatest of the Greek poets, Homer, sang about war in the Iliad and about coming home from war in the Odyssey. Later Greeks, such as Thucydides, analyzed how the Athenian democracy started a war and lost. The great tragic poets, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (themselves war veterans) understood soldiers and their families, their sorrows and their rages.
Fast-forward two and a half thousand years. With our own democracy at war, this conference made one thing clear: that we need to return to those first ancient practitioners of democracy to understand how war and violence affect our lives and our humanity. Moreover, how our soldiers, their families, and our society can cope with the trauma of war.
RESULTS
The soldiers monopolized a great deal of the conference, with papers by leading classical scholars as well as psychiatrists working with our veterans.
The conference opened and closed with Homer. Dr. Jonathan Shay, an internationally known authority on the treatment and prevention of combat trauma, gave the Opening Lecture on “Homer’s Leaders in America’s Forces”. Dr. Shay is author of two very influential books, Achilles in Vietnam and Odysseus in America. He stressed the need for citizens of democratic states to educate themselves on leadership, because it is a key factor determining if soldiers come back physically, psychologically, and spiritually whole or if they come back wrecked. We can learn so much, Shay says, from Homer’s leadership portraits.
One of the central issues of the conference was the help we can derive from the Greeks in preventing, minimizing, and healing the psychological wounds of our soldiers.
Professor Thomas Palaima, a MacArthur Fellow and Distinguished Professor at the University of Texas at Austin explained that the symptoms and causes of combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were the same for soldiers fighting on the plains of ancient Troy and for Vietnam and Iraq veterans. The Greeks had invented ways of helping their soldiers cope with combat trauma, ways that in many ways are superior to our own.
Moreover, Greek armies suffered from many of today’s problems: equipment failures, faulty intelligence, death and injury on missions that have no clear purpose, death by friendly fire, cowardice or negligence among fellow soldiers or the failure of officers in charge to take all necessary measures to protect the lives of common soldiers, were all known to Homer when he composed his Iliad, almost three thousand years ago.
Building the character of the American soldier is a key factor in helping our soldiers cope with war. Lieutenant Colonel Ted Westhusing, professor of philosophy at the US Military Academy at West Point established that the foundation of the honorable soldier and ‘fair fight’ is rooted in the Greek philosophical tradition.
And then there are the families: wives, mothers, sisters, sons, daughters, all those who are affected by the veteran’s trauma. Christina Weber, a sociologist, and Dr. Aphrodite Matsakis (whose classic Vietnam Wives has just been reissued in a second edition and should be known to every family of a returning veteran) showed how valuable Greek myths are in our own understanding and coping with war.
War affects us all, as a society and as a democracy. Professor Gretchen Moon showed that the way that democratic states decide to go to war, is often a result of demagogues misleading their citizens because it is through war that they maintain political power. Educating its citizens to that they can think critically and distinguish between real arguments and false pretexts for war, is the only way for a democracy to function properly.
The conference closed with film maker, Charles Berkowitz‘s deeply moving film called Achilles in Vietnam, in which Vietnam combat veterans, as well as leading American military professionals reflected on war’s impact.
“They say history does not repeat itself; and yet, certain conditions will lead to similar events, which can be anticipated”, commented Professor Michael Cosmopoulos, Chair of Greek Studies and organizer of the conference. “The ancient Greeks paid a horrible price for their inability to prevent war and violence. It is up to us to learn from their experience and not make the same mistakes. We really do not have a choice.”
Book: Michael B. Cosmopoulos (ed.), Experiencing War: Trauma and Society from Ancient Greece to the Iraq War. Chicago: Ares Publishers, 2007. Pp. v, 288. ISBN 0890056064978. $25.00 (pb).
