There's a great book called "Achilles in Vietnam" by psychiatrist Jonathan Shay, who compares PTSD symptoms seen in his patients (Vietnam vets) to the descriptions of Greek soldiers experiencing psychological trauma in Homer's Iliad. It's a really interesting book -- the two main points are that PTSD is not a modern ailment but has been affecting soldiers since the beginning of history, and that honoring soldiers' experiences in a heroic narrative promotes psychological healing in numerous ways.
I watched a one man play last year that, more or less, talked about this. It was just him talking about his experiences in war and how it effected him. But also how he sought comfort in reading and then performing Shakespeare. The most interesting part is the concept of the "berserker" as a form of PTSD. A seeking requirement towards death that leads one down a destructive path. Hence the concept of removing armor and rushing into the melee.
His concept was that Margaret of Anjou was, effectively, a P.O.W and...goes berserk later. I'm not 100% sold on it, but researching it did lead me to read Jonathan Shay's novel "Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character". Which was pretty amazing to read. Comparing Achilles fall into madness to PTSD and veterans was quite interesting and helpful to me.
Here's a link to an article written by the playwright mentioned and link to the book in question
I highly recommend this book/memoir from a German machine gunner fighting on the eastern front. Absolutely brutal.
https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Red-Snow-Memoirs-Soldier/dp/0760321981
Don't forget to also read Fick's <em>One Bullet Away</em>.
Generation Kill was written by the embedded Rolling Stone reporter, but One Bullet Away was written by the officer commanding that platoon.
I read Chickenhawk, the account of a helo pilot in Vietnam. The scam was that every time a cargo copter went down, quartermasters would claim their missing equipment was on board. This pilot served on an accident investigation team, and they calculated that the listed cargo was something like twice the weight of the aircraft.
Yeah WWII has so much that you can read about, not just from history books, but also first hand accounts. A good place to start is "With the Old Breed" by E.B. Sledge. You're never really done discovering stuff about WWII once you start diving into all sides of the conflict.
> We once made a low-level attack near Eastbourne,' recalled a pilot called von Greim. 'When we got there, we saw a large mansion where they seemed to be having a ball or something; in any case we saw a lot of women in fancy-dress, and an orchestra. We turned round and flew towards it. The first time, we flew past, and then we approached again and machine-gunned them. It was great fun!'
This is one of thousands of German transcripts recorded during "Operation Eavesdrop" by the British.
A German man spent a decade compiling them and wrote a book:
<em>Soldaten</em> by Sönke Neitzel
He is legitimately the original guy to claim "the majority of the Wehrmacht was not honorable" and he made that judgement based off of the hundred thousand transcripts from German POWs he read through.
I've read it. It's fucked up. Very candid. Not exactly the best translated book so some things are lost to that. Otherwise, I recommend anyone read it who has a genuine interest. No, the book isn't full of Germans gleefully talking about murder like the aforementioned transcript.....but a majority were complicit or had no issues with what was going on around them.
Best book for these people to read is <em>Soldaten</em>. Because it shows the frank conversations the German POWs had when they thought no one was listening.
Forced to fight, maybe. Forced to kill civilians in cold blood? No. No German soldier was punished for refusing. Very few even expressed qualms about it.
More here
https://www.amazon.com/Soldaten-Fighting-Killing-Sonke-Neitzel/dp/1849839492
Damned by their own words.
SSgt Bellavia wrote a book titled “House to House” about his experiences in Fallujah. It was the book that got me hooked on memoirs and biographies. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend reading it. I’m pretty sure it chronicles the events for which he will now be awarded the Medal of Honor.
Edit: Added some info.
Very much so. The reporter was embedded in a truck with a specific Squad Leader. You end up seeing the whole invasion over-the-shoulder of just that Squad Leader. Gen Mattis is just a cameo and the whole US Army doesn't exist except for a brief mention of Jessica Lynch's convoy getting captured. It's a very narrow (albeit uniquely and redeemingly indepth) view of the invasion.
As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, the Platoon Leader, Nathaniel Fick, published his own account if you want to contrast the view from literally just one echelon higher.
https://www.amazon.com/One-Bullet-Away-Making-Officer/dp/0618773436
Eugene sledge wrote With the Old Breed and it is a fascinating read.
Reading the book the HBO Pacific series seem tame compared to reality from a grunts perspective.
I spent most of the summer reading WW2 memoirs, including Eugene Sledge's <em>With the Old Breed</em>.
I feel like WW2 stuff is the base of so much of the modern meme around needing a new warrior class.
What rules about this meme, and the general mindset that we need for a better society is Strong Men creating Good Times through war, is it ignores the part where the Strong Men who managed to make it through with all their limbs still attached suffer decades of nightmares and panic attacks and broken marriages and emotions they cannot control.
https://www.amazon.com/Tribe-Homecoming-Belonging-Sebastian-Junger/dp/1455566381
If you read enough English to read this book, you should check it out.
Sounds like the cities in China are so hyper-modern-society'ized that it can be very harmful for your mental health.
Male here, but I have to recommend this book whenever I have the chance: Tribe by Sebastian Junger.
Junger is war correspondent, documentary filmmaker, writer, etc. He's seen way more than most of us ever will, and this book really drove home some points for me about what it means to be part of your community, part of society, and how we treat each other.
This review on Amazon sums it up very well:
"Tribe focuses on the growing disconnect we’re experiencing with one another as a society, and the far reaching consequences of that disconnect. It’s an eye-opening letter to the American public that politely reminds us that we’ve lost our way when it comes to being a closer knit community as a whole.
Not always, of course. In his book, he touches on how tragedies such as 9/11 brings us closer - albeit briefly. But once the dust settles, we fall back to our old ways.
This is not a book about war, the military, or PTSD. It’s about the loss of belonging, caring for our fellow man as we do about the ones closest to us. He uses a parable about a brief encounter he has with a homeless man as a young adult. The man sees that he’s on a backpacking trip on his own and asks if he has enough food for his trip. The young Junger, afraid of being mugged for his supplies, lies and tells the man that he has just a little food to last him. The homeless man tells Junger he’ll never make it on what he has and hands him his lunch bag that he more than likely received from a homeless shelter - probably the only meal the homeless man would have the entire day. Sebastian feels horrible about himself after that, but uses that lesson as a parable for Tribe.
Think of your fellow man before thinking of yourself. Because without that sense of humanism, togetherness, belonging, we’re all dead inside."
Immediately, I think you should consider two things: Nightmare on Elm Street, and the trope of the impaired female.
Even the great Wes Craven, in early drafts, fell prey to this bias of the (typically male) writer. His female victim was perceived by his daughter as poorly written. Therefore, Craven decided to break the trope and made his female characters more competent.
In the end, Elm Street has proven to be a classic film, rich with meaning. It's more than just "oh, scary guy killing people." It's about realizing that groups of people can agree to do terrible things, like gathering together to burn Freddie. It's a complicated revenge fantasy told from the victims' perspective.
So... that's where I'll start. Why does Maggie need to be "battling depression" in your logline? What if she's not impaired and actually up against a terrifying threat?
That said, a flawed character is viable. And yes, we all face depression. But if your story stands the test of time, it would benefit from wrestling with the real source of our societal depression. Here's a link to a book from 2016. It openly points to the source: a real lack of community.
Good luck with writing. Thanks for trusting us to reflect on your work.
- Daniel
Where men die for rich people to acquire resources and create new cheap labor. Don't believe the patriotic nonsense about bringing democracy, it's about filling the coffers of weapon manufacturers and corporations, stealing other peoples resources and "resetting" other societies to create chaos to create extremely exploitable sources of cheap labor abroad.
Before anyone signs up for the military, or you're in the military you should all read this by a decorated marine War is a racket
This is an interesting look at how others see us.
If I may add, the real reason is tribalism. And the Human desire to not be alone. So we latch onto whatever tribe we can to help our identity. If you want to read more, I highly suggest Tribe by Sebastian Jengur
House to house is a book that is under recommended on this reddit, it's certainly fast paced, occasionally humorous, and full of action. As a bonus it's a Memoir about a soldiers experience in the battle of Fallujah, so outside of a few scenes that might have some gilding it's not a fictional story.
Here is the amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/House-An-Epic-Memoir-War/dp/1416596607
With the Old Breed by E. B. Sledge. The author was there and the book is said to be one of the best accounts by an enlisted soldier (non-officer) of the war.
“In all the literature on the Second World War, there is not a more honest, realistic or moving memoir than Eugene Sledge’s. This is the real deal, the real war: unvarnished, brutal, without a shred of sentimentality or false patriotism, a profound primer on what it actually was like to be in that war. It is a classic that will outlive all the armchair generals’ safe accounts of—not the ‘good war’—but the worst war ever.”—Ken Burns (from the amazon page)
Yeah I remember that part of the show too. The change in tactics in the Pacific left a lot of people stranded with no support. Sorry fellas, we'll be back to get you later if the Japanese don't decide to stop by the island first. Talk about creepy. I enjoyed the interviews Burns did with the people at home. That lady talking about her brother and Sledge...you just could hear in in her Alabama drawl. "They were all changed when they came back from that woe-ah."
I was also taken with the Sledge story. A good read.
House to House by David Bellavia is an awesome and horrible account of taking Fallujah. At one point it went way past combat with bayonets -- bullets out, rifle dropped, Bellavia ends up wailing on an insurgent with his helmet.
Go read War Is a Racket by Smedley Butler: https://www.amazon.com/War-Racket-Antiwar-Americas-Decorated/dp/0922915865
Go read Eisenhower's farewell address: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwight-d-eisenhowers-farewell-address
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> Another issue is race - not many of these shooters are black
This is a manosphere approved writer who has been on joe rogan several times and briefly touches on this. You might find his book really interesting, he talks about how men used to have a way to prove their masculinity that wasn't sex and how we desperately need community. It's a short, great read you might like:
Junger would say "solutions" to mass shootings include making our country a community. He recomends a year of mandatory (not military) service for everyone after high school so that rich and poor people interact and everyone has a sense of civic duty and "belonging".
I think his ideas about how dangerous the suburbs are for our health are really interesting and give me some of my own ideas about what we need to do.
Officially, first world militaries don't just hand epi out. But third world militaries, militias / terrorist groups etc aren't shy about abusing it. Moslem extremists like it because it isn't a drug of abuse so they can use it without compromising their faith. If you're a reader, or even if you aren't, check out House to House by Ssgt David Bellavia. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1416596607/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_BJH8PF26JE13GBYKEWHY It's the most intense and "real" book on war I've ever read. The book covers 2-2 US infantry's insane fight at second Fallujah.
Bro, buy your friend this book. It is a true eye opener. Your friend is the type of person who will connect to the message. Scroll to the bottom of the page to read the excerpt and see if you agree. https://www.amazon.com/Tribe-Homecoming-Belonging-Sebastian-Junger/dp/1455566381/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=3JS5OQ3HMLB6G&keywords=tribe+sebastian+junger&qid=1644554851&sprefix=tribe+sebastian+junger%2Caps%2C337&sr=8-1
Bro, buy your friend this book. It is a true eye opener. Your friend is the type of person who will connect to the message. Scroll to the bottom of the page to read the excerpt and see if you agree. https://www.amazon.com/Tribe-Homecoming-Belonging-Sebastian-Junger/dp/1455566381/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=3JS5OQ3HMLB6G&keywords=tribe+sebastian+junger&qid=1644554851&sprefix=tribe+sebastian+junger%2Caps%2C337&sr=8-1
Bro, buy your friend this book. It is a true eye opener. Your friend is the type of person who will connect to the message. Scroll to the bottom of the page to read the excerpt and see if you agree. https://www.amazon.com/Tribe-Homecoming-Belonging-Sebastian-Junger/dp/1455566381/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=3JS5OQ3HMLB6G&keywords=tribe+sebastian+junger&qid=1644554851&sprefix=tribe+sebastian+junger%2Caps%2C337&sr=8-1
Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front https://www.amazon.com/dp/0760321981/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_TXDJKEK7JTGTFHSSG20M
Here is the amazon link to the book. I highly recommend as well.