Today's episode is hosted by Jeff Crane. Sara Hart, Chair of the Applied Humanities Department at Cal Poly Humboldt, is the co-host and guest! She discusses her personal relationship to war and her personal work which is informed by it. This episode is great context for the reason why SNAFUBAR came to be!
Works Cited:
Paul Fussell
The Good Soldiers by David Finkel
Achilles in Vietnam by Jonathan Shay
What It’s Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes
Redeployment by Phil Klay
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Operation Never Mind: James Mcmurtry
War Games episode
Adam Zumwalt
>>Abigail Smithson: This is Abigail Smithson, producer of SNAFUBAR. And we have something a bit different than usual for this episode. This week, we bring our show’s hosts together for a conversation. Our co-host Sara is in the hot seat, with Jeff as the interviewer. It is helpful to provide some more context for SNAFUBAR as a show overall. Jeff and Sara do not come to military history randomly, or just because it piques their interest as curious people. They are interested in military history, and in many cases, military mistakes, because they have deep personal ties to it and care about the many outcomes of martial engagement, especially the experience of veterans before and after they return from war.As you will hear in this episode, Sara is the daughter of a Marine corps veteran, and she grew up in a household sometimes defined by her father's experience in Vietnam, and after. The way in which she speaks about her father, about knowing him, living with him, loving him, and understanding him, being with him at the end of his life, carries an intimate potency. Throughout other episodes of SNAFUBAR, she shares both from her personal perspective and about the research she has done as a scholar to better understand war and the culture around it in the United States. But in this episode in particular, we are able to really understand why she approaches this work as she does, what informs her opinions and what makes her feel that this work is so necessary, for all of us. As always, thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy this episode.
[ Music ]
>> Dwight D. Eisenhower: You are about to embark upon the great crusade.
>> John F. Kennedy: The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it.
>> Douglas MacArthur: Only the dead have seen the end of war.
>> Dwight D. Eisenhower: We will accept nothing less than full victory.
>> Sara Hart: You're listening to SNAFUBAR at Cal Poly Humboldt.
>> Jeff Crane: Hello, listeners. Welcome back to "SNAFUBAR." I am Jeff sidebar Crane here with --
>> Sara Hart: Sarah Hart.
>> Jeff Crane: Sarah I really like the marine corps Hart. And today we're going to queue up something a little different. I think I've thought about this show a lot as we work on the scripts and I listen to it. And it occurs to me that people are probably wondering why the two of us are so in to military history and moral injury and it clearly has an emotional quota to it that, you know, is informed by our own experiences. So what I wanted to do today was just interview Sarah, give you a chance to get to know Dr. Sarah Hart better, where she's coming from, why she has such passion, why are we together, give a lecture on moral injury in a Macedonian and Roman theater in Macedonia. So that's what we're doing today. So hey welcome to our show, Sara.
>> Sara Hart: Glad to be here. And I do think this is a good idea. This is, you know, we're a show on American war and American myth, on American history and like a lot of scholarly stuff that we spend time with. But we're also -- we're also this is a show about things that we care about. And so getting to know your hosts a little bit, this is a pretty weighted topic and who's talking. You know, my uncle Jay used to say all the time -- we'd say something to him and he'd say, "Consider the source." You know, and so a little bit of like this is an opportunity to consider the source. You -- there will be ways that I think getting to know each of us a little better and where we're coming from will help to listeners out there, help you all to sort of gauge the more historical or scholarly side of the show as we're presenting it.
>> Jeff Crane: Yeah. And what biases and concerns drive the way we think and talk. What is the, you know, filter we apply? We both come from these backgrounds that are very much embedded in military experience and also too, as we say on the show, we're such a militaristic society that there has to be a space where these conversations happen. All right. So when we first met, right, you know, I'm a new dean. I'm getting to know you as a faculty. We connected as I remember at both -- based on our own history as related to the military. Right? I'm saying this very specifically because I'm a P sign veteran. You're the daughter of a combat veteran. I'm the son of a combat veteran. And then I think we very quickly got to discussions about things like moral injury, the lack of support for veterans in our country. That's how I remember it, but is that your recollection too? Like our original connection.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. I think that we absolutely. It turns out like it's rare in the academic world that you share a bookshelf with someone. You know, that your bookshelves overlap. I think one of the things about teaching at a university is that each of us is, you know, we're experts in our way which means we kind of dive down in to these little rabbit holes of specificity in our studies. And so that's the tendency. And it's --
>> Jeff Crane: We don't dialogue. We mini lecture each other.
>> Sara Hart: We mini lecture each other. You know, it's just --
>> Jeff Crane: My wife flagged that one. She's like, "You all just do mini lectures."
>> Sara Hart: Thank you very much, if you are listening. I, you know -- and so it's pretty rare when you -- when you have colleagues that -- whose bookshelves largely overlap with yours. And I think ours did. You know? And that was like it was surprising. It was rare. It was something that I appreciated a great deal. And it turns out --
>> Jeff Crane: That's right. Because we were talking about a lot of the same books. We're like, "Oh yeah. I've read that too."
>> Sara Hart: And it turns out that neither one of us is like we didn't write PhDs on this. You know, or dissertations on this. Like this is who -- we came by it honestly. We came by it through our own experience. And at this point it's just sort of, you know, something that our own backgrounds drive. And so those conversations, bookshelfy though they may have been, became I think more personal and more like experientially based, more historically based in our own narratives. So yeah. And, you know -- and we have ample opportunity to work on projects around this also. It's something great about a university context is that it provides just so many opportunities, rich opportunities to do things that we want to do in helping to extend knowledge to the community and each other. So we had lots of opportunities too talk.
>> Jeff Crane: Yeah. That's yeah. Overlapping bookshelves. That's a great phrase I'm going to steal and use from now on. I think the other thing too is --
>> Sara Hart: Perfect. You won't have the opportunity very often.
>> Jeff Crane: We're both committed generalists. Right? You know, in academics there's this emphasis on specializing and for whatever reasons both of us have decided to be generalists.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah.
>> Jeff Crane: Which brings positive outcomes and maybe some negative ones. But we also share a blue collar background. We have, you know, spent our time in a variety of jobs working our way up. And I think -- and that's not super rare, but it's not common in academics. Right? So and that's a mindset. A blue collar background and work ethic is a particular type of mindset. Not always necessarily healthy. Right?
>> Sara Hart: No. Sometimes it's super unhealthy, I think. Like, you know --
>> Jeff Crane: I can outwork you. I'm like Avis. I just try harder. Yeah.
>> Sara Hart: My family might have something to say about the degree to which work drives my life, you know. But I think it is -- it's not super rare. It's not like unique, but I think it's not super common on a college campus to encounter people teaching who have dug ditches.
>> Jeff Crane: Yeah. Right. Dug ditches or worked in the camp for adjudicated sexual offenders or driven a truck long haul or friend donuts. Like the list of -- someone said once, "You must have quit jobs a lot." Because I've had so many jobs. Fire tower lookout.
>> Sara Hart: That's a great one.
>> Jeff Crane: That was fun.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah.
>> Jeff Crane: So I want to talk about what I phrase as military connectedness. I know for me that again even as a peace time veteran from the Cold War, so, you know, geriatric now, when I meet with veterans there's a whole shift in how we talk, what we connect on, and there's conversations I can have there I cannot have with people who have not been in the military. Right? Even again my experience being a peace time memory. Right? Peace time service. So and then there's that issue too of having grown up in a military family. So I want to ask you to kind of explore that a little bit. What happens? Why do these connections -- why do they happen? Why are they important?
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. Well, I mean I should start by saying that yes I grew up just kind of immersed in a military style of communication and being through my father who was a --
>> Jeff Crane: This is not a democracy. This is a dictatorship.
>> Sara Hart: This is not a democracy. Don't call me sir. I work for a living. Take what you want. Eat what you take. You know. Like --
>> Jeff Crane: It's just as easy to be early as it is to be late.
>> Sara Hart: Yes. Say what you mean. Do what you say. Right. There's just like it's -- there is a degree of, I don't know, comfortable rigidity. I would call it comfortable rigidity around the kind of background that I had. My dad was a combat veteran who said this. And he was -- and I imagine we might get in to this a little bit.
>> Jeff Crane: I was meaning to ask you like where he served. I know Vietnam, but like specifically.
>> Sara Hart: Well, I mean that's an interesting question. My brothers would probably know more, and I could dig in to his papers, but I don't really know the details of the battles. You know, I know that he did two tours as a marine infantryman. He was a sergeant. In between the two tours he did a stint of embassy duty in Manila.
>> Jeff Crane: And just so people know that you are only required to do one tour.
>> Sara Hart: Oh yeah. No. And he enlisted at 17. So like so we'll -- I'll go back to that in a second and talk a little bit about his story maybe, but just in terms of my own, you know, the question that you asked, and my own military connectedness, like I grew up comfortable with military discourse not just in content, but in tone. And maybe even --
>> Jeff Crane: What do you mean by military discourse? Like what does that mean?
>> Sara Hart: What you describe as like there's some conversations you just can't have in a civilian population. Like I am a civilian, you know. I am not a peace time veteran. I'm not a combat veteran. Like military connectedness I think I do experience having been sort of raised as a small child in VFW halls and bars. And --
>> Jeff Crane: Veterans of Foreign Wars is what that acronym stands for.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. It's a veterans organization. You know, my dad was really active in all that. And I remember those. Those memories for me are very positive. Like my brothers and I would play pool or checkers or whatever. They were very welcoming of children. I mean it is a bar situation and so I think there's difficulties around that because one of the struggles of reintegration is not using singularly alcohol to do it. You know, that can be destructive. But and so there's some, you know -- there's some reminder within me that like the bars are not the only answer. But for me growing up they were a really welcoming and home like place. And so and I guess there's -- you know, and then, you know, as an adult now I also I'm just I can't express how, you know, grateful I am to have the community at the Arcata of veterans hall that I do. And this is an American Legion post 274 in Arcata and, you know, independently of my relationship with my father and my interest in military concerns this group of people is they're family. And so I have maintained that connectedness. But I guess here's -- that's my background, but here's the point that I would say is like the one thing that your question like, "What do you think about that military connectedness and the kind of conversations that you can have in those circles that you just can't have elsewhere?" I would say yeah. I have experienced that. And also and maybe at least as much the tone, like the language, the tone, the camaraderie that takes expression in a lot of trash talk.
>> Jeff Crane: So this is what I miss the most about the military is trash talk because I'm really good at it.
>> Sara Hart: I'm really good at it. I've got two brothers. Like I'm just really good at it.
>> Jeff Crane: I can smack talk. I have rarely been beat at smack talk. My former brother-in-law was like the only one.
>> Sara Hart: See this is really why we connect. And --
>> Jeff Crane: This is why we connect. But in academics --
>> Sara Hart: It's not appropriate.
>> Jeff Crane: Feelings get hurt very quickly.
>> Sara Hart: They get hurt and it's I think and it's just --
>> Jeff Crane: You just said something mean to me.
>> Sara Hart: In the general population like if you read the transcripts often it is inappropriate the degree to which the smack talk takes like --
>> Jeff Crane: Oh yeah. I won't be giving any examples today.
>> Sara Hart: We're not going to give examples because it's not -- you know, it is -- but there's a kind of like it is a kind of a style of communication that you can only have in the context of deep and abiding trust. And that deep and abiding trust is the thing that I lean in to when it comes to the military communities. I think that kind of toughening us or leathering up our exterior for the hard cold realities of the world –
>> Jeff Crane: Let’s explore this a little bit more because I don’t know if you are familiar with that phrase” doing the dozens”, Zora Neale Hurston, the author of Their Eyes are Watching God.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah, another way of trash talking.
>> Jeff Crane: Well yeah, but she wrote about this in her anthropological work. She trained with Franz Boas at Columbia University if I remember correctly. And “Doing the dozens” according to her is African Americans in the Jim Crow south, in particular, engaged in very serious smack talk, if we weren’t on the radio we’d be using a different word, right? In order to teach you how to control your emotions, right?
>> Sara Hart: Yeah, real survival.
>> Jeff Crane: Mean. Really mean. Like a middle schooler can zero in, this is a John Mulaney line “A middle schooler can figure out your greatest weakness and identify it right away”. Going right after that fundamental weakness to teach you to restraint because if a white person did that to you in the Jim Crow south and you got mad, you would be lynched, right? And then I wondered, okay, I get it, right? I udnerstand that. But then I think about, for example, enlisted soldiers, sailors and also marines. We talked about it before on the show when we jokingly called Liam our subaltern. They are the lower class, subordinates with little to no power, if that is also why smacktalk is such a big part of military culture. And then if you go into work places like warehouses, things like that, cause that’s not the only place, because you don’t have it academics because we are all autonomous and there is very little anything anyone can do to us.
>> Sara Hart: I think that kind of toughening us, leathering up our exterior for the hard, cold realities of the world..
>> Jeff Crane: That's how I was able to become a dean.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. Like go ahead. Punch again, you know, is part of like a kind of training in that way. I think there's something else to it too which is -- which is that the incredible humor that goes in to it is I think a little bit of like in addition to the very real function of girding us against the hard cold realities of the world I think it's also a kind of intentional recognition of the levity that mortality gives to life if life is going to be meaningful and beautiful and also short.
>> Jeff Crane: Yeah.
>> Sara Hart: You know, there's a way of that humor. So it girds us against the people who would punch us in the face.
>> Jeff Crane: That was so eloquent. I'm thinking of a really rough example. Beautiful. Yeah.
>> Sara Hart: I'm thinking of a lot of it. I'm trying to -- I'm trying to keep it together here. There's like when I think about the kinds of trash talk that I most associate with military connectedness it is dirty. It is harsh sometimes. It is hilarious. If somebody -- if you push it too far then everybody stops. There's a protectiveness around it. And I do like I think my brothers and I none of us military, all of us military connected in our way through my dad, are the same way. Like there is no holds barred when it comes to trash talk, but the second somebody's genuinely pained you back off. You know? And so --
>> Jeff Crane: I think we learn also too kind of the degree to which we do smack talk we actually play off people's strengths. So when I tease you I'm not -- I'm not like, "Oh. Here's a weakness. I'm going to take her apart." I'm playing off of your strengths. Right?
>> Sara Hart: You've got to be willing to receive it if you're going to give it. I think that's also part of it, so.
>> Jeff Crane: Okay. So there's that, but then what about that like being able to have conversations you can't have in other spaces in a shared language? Our shared, you know, yeah, shared culture. What is -- how does that play in to it for veterans in the military? What's the term? There's a term for people that are not veterans, but anyways they're affiliated.
>> Sarah Hart: Dependents.
>> Jeff Crane: Yeah. There's a different term and I can't think of it. Yeah.
>> Sara Hart: Well, I mean I think as a dependent, as a non -- as a civilian military connected person like my role in those conversations is largely to listen, you know. And I think that there are a lot of -- there are a lot of conversations that I've been really privileged to be around that are hard and that would not be received well by the general population. And so there's those really traumatic conversations. They don't -- you know, they don't like -- I don't think that's the center of my experience with the veteran community. But that is part of what I think of as conversations that just don't happen outside of veteran circles. And I think there's a lot of them that won't happen with me present, you know. And so --
>> Jeff Crane: So instead of me saying a thing I want to try to get you to say it which is I'm thinking of Fussell and I'm thinking of -- I'm forgetting the author. I meant to look it up. But the author of "The Good Soldiers." I'm thinking of "Achilles in Vietnam." What is the role of listening? So the narrative is veterans won't talk about their experience because they just suck it up and they don't want to talk about it.
>> Sara Hart: Or they're not capable of talking about it.
>> Jeff Crane: What's your perspective on this and what's the role of listening to these hard stories?
>> Sara Hart: I mean I don't know if this is exactly what you're thinking, but for me the role of listening -- when I think about this I think veterans aren't withholding their stories of combat experience because they're incapable of telling them. These stories are considered profane in general population, in civilian culture. Like they're considered -- you know, I think a lot of the times these -- the realities of military and especially combat experience are things that the civilian population doesn't want to hear about.
>> Jeff Crane: Right.
>> Sara Hart: That they don't. That like it somehow dirties us to hear about it. Like I -- you're supposed to keep that in the closet, you know. Like have that experience. Do the thing. We'll clap for you.
>> Jeff Crane: Tie a yellow ribbon.
>> Sara Hart: We'll tie a yellow ribbon. There's --
>> Jeff Crane: Tie a yellow ribbon.
>> Sara Hart: There's a couple days a year when we'll clap for you. And, you know, I was -- so I just recently read this book which we've talked about a little bit by Karl Marlantes which is just phenomenal. He's a Vietnam combat veteran who came back and decades later wrote this book called "What it is Like to Go to War." And in it he says something I'm going to like loosely quote here where he says, you know, clapping/applause for, you know, veterans' traumatic combat experience is not the appropriate response. Marlantes says like, "Look. The celebratory parades are not the appropriate response. Combat veterans know more than anyone else the grief that goes in to this, the suffering and the pain and the trauma that goes in to this." And clapping for it is just off. It's out of key, you know. And so what we should see is some ceremonial processions with riffles upside down, a kind of recognized solemnity that goes in to the experience of being called by a nation, sent to a place, to do heavy traumatic things involving death. And then coming back and having to be like, "No. It's cool, man. I'll just flip that switch." Oh. You don't want to hear about that? Like okay.
>> Jeff Crane: So Shay. That's like a macro version of what Shay says.
>> Sara Hart: Jonathan Shay?
>> Jeff Crane: Thank you. Jonathan Shay. And of course Vietnam is part of what we need to do for those who served is restore grieving. Right? And he says in the "Iliad" they grieve and they grieve hard.
>> Sara Hart: They grieve hard. Yeah. The rending of garments.
>> Jeff Crane: For days. And the funeral pyre and the games and all that. And then we barely acknowledge the loss and at a national level that's what it sounds like this other author's talking about.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah.
>> Jeff Crane: The thing I want to say, I guess, at this point which is, you know, this happens to me a lot because I'm a storyteller, but you see that thing happen in the eyes and you know they're not really listening anymore. Right? Or maybe they're even so bold as to maybe look away a couple of times. Right? Yeah. Abigail's doing -- Abigail never -- she's a very good listener. Never seen that happen in Abigail's eyes. I saw it happen to someone yesterday. I'm like okay. Dial back the stories, Jeff.
>> Sara Hart: Hello. Welcome back.
>> Jeff Crane: Yeah. So I'm telling you -- so I'm sitting here. This happens to me when I talk about SERE school, survival, evasion, resistance, escape. I used to tell that story and I would see that response so I stopped telling those stories. Right? So some combat veterans talking about some negative thing they see that and they're like, "All right. They don't want to hear it."
>> Sara Hart: And then it's a learned response and keep your mouth shut.
>> Jeff Crane: So it's not them saying, "Oh. I'm going to be John Wayne" who did not serve and could have and should have. And I'm just going to keep it to myself. It's because we are signaling we don't want to hear it. Not only one on one, but as a culture there is no space, coming back to your point, for that. So what's our responsibility when someone starts to talk about what happened to them or what they did? And there's a great short story in that collection "Redeployment" that's about that. What's our responsibility?
>> Sara Hart: This gets to the core of what really brings me continuously back, like why my bookshelf is full of books on war. Why my thinking circles around questions of war. It's not because I love war. It's not because I think it's like the coolest topic. I think there's probably other ones, some really cool bird stories I've learned recently which I could tell, but war pulls me because I -- what I keep seeing -- I mean I'm a religious studies scholar. That's what I -- that's my training. That's what I do. And what I see when I look at Americans' relationship to war is a real lack of any self conscious authentic structure of shared belief. Like we're not answering to the responsibilities that we incur by being a militaristic martial culture. So okay. So that's all a long way around of like what's our responsibility to these stories. I think we -- I think the number one responsibility is we recognize that they're our stories too. Not in a sense of ownership. Not in a sense of like, "Oh. I feel you. Like I've --" Like no I don't. I haven't been there. But in a sense that this isn't -- that the trauma and the violence that our veterans have experienced or the sheer mind crunching boredom that they've experienced or the --
>> Jeff Crane: Or just I mean even a peace time military the misogyny, the homophobia, the transphobia, right. The violence of the culture even in a peace time military does a number on you.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. So recognizing that we -- that all of that is something that the civilian population has a part in, that it is part of our culture, that it is not separate from our culture, that it underwrites all of the consumer privileges that we sit happily on and we, you know, flag wave around a little bit. Like that militaristic culture. Like am I saying that we should have a militaristic culture? No. I think more studying of war, more attention to our veterans and their experiences, would lead to less war which would be the goal. Like no war? I don't know. I'm not seeing it in human history so I'm not going to suggest that that's like -- I'd like to have a reachable goal, but I think the reachable goal is let's be conscientious about the martial engagements that we undertake and let's recognize that the people who engage them, those are people and they are going to come back and they are going to have experiences that don't gel with the society that denies its own hand in the martial engagements, in the war. You know? And I don't know. So listening. I think number one is listening.
>> Jeff Crane: You have to listen.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. You've got to listen.
>> Jeff Crane: Right. So yeah. So I'm reading this book called "The Burnout Society" by a South Korean German philosopher Byung-Chul Han. I hope I said his name right. And it's really messing with my head. But one of the things it says is because of our achievement orientation there's no listening anymore. There's -- we have no space or energy for listening. And I mean I think that's true oftentimes, but these veterans have at least earned somebody listening. We don't have Liam mic’d, but he's making some great points about how we don't have a culture for talking about military experience. We don't have the storytellers in place. This goes back to Paul Fussell quoting Walt Whitman when he -- his final chapter, the final chapter of Paul Fussell's book about World War II, the title which I'm forgetting right now. Says the real war will never get in the books. Right? And that's Walt Whitman talking about the Civil War. Right? And so we don't have that in our culture and it is fundamentally, according to Fussell, and I agree, one of the reasons we're so willing to go to war over and over again is that we don't have -- you have a small segment of the population that's not really able to communicate with the broader population about the realities of their experience. We don't have those structures in our society. The war movies we see tend to be romantic or are so to the extreme they're romantic in their own weird ways like "Apocalypse Now" is an anti war film. I knew a guy in 82nd airborne who watched it 72 times which is just weird. Right? It became kind of war porn. Right? That movie "Jarheads" actually talks about "Apocalypse Now" as war porn. It's not about heroic sacrifice. It's about a different type of sacrifice. Anyways we don't have that in our culture to talk about.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah, and I think that phrase impossible position it gives us some -- it gives us a handle for this like. And Jeff I do think it has something to do with the draft. You've mentioned the draft and the all volunteer force after --
>> Jeff Crane: It used to be older folks. I could turn to somebody who's, you know, 20 years old. They'd all served.
>> Sara Hart: Right. So --
>> Jeff Crane: So we had that shared.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. So when we --
>> Jeff Crane: Men.
>> Sara Hart: Men. And of course they didn't mean [inaudible]. Okay. Yeah. So I do think it has something to do with the all volunteer force. Like having the sense of an impossible position and no place to come back to, no context within which one's stories or one's, you know, just one's experience of the world has like a point of access. Like after the initiation of the all volunteer force you've got 1% of the nation who serves in a professionalized military which means they serve extended durations. It's not just a year anymore. This is a career path. And so it's not just that it's 1% and it's people who, you know, choose for whatever reason, some of which are less choice oriented. It's also that they're not removed from civilian society for a year, for a tour plus training. They're removed from civilian society for sometimes 20 years, 30 years. You know, like they're going to retire from this. Like and sometimes it comes in the form of like extended orders or stop loss. Like you don't have to choose. You can just be sent. And -
>> Jeff Crane: Explain stop loss.
>> Sara Hart: Stop loss was this policy where you -- that the military used when it had a hard time in the early oughts, when it had a hard time recruiting. Recruitment went down. And in a professionalized all volunteer force it turns out you have a harder time drumming up an army, you know. And so --
>> Jeff Crane: Sort of like Vietnam. We were sending people over and over and over multiple tours to Iraq and --
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. So Vietnam you were -- you get drafted in to Vietnam you're going for one tour. If you went for more than one tour --
>> Jeff Crane: Which is one year.
>> Sara Hart: Which is one year. You went for more than one tour and that means you chose or you got in trouble. Mostly you chose. And so but you go to -- we had a lot of post 9/11 veterans who were service members who were getting sent over for their second, third, fourth, and the stop loss which is like hyphenated is a policy that the military used to stop the loss, I imagine was where the name came from, to stop the loss of service members. You needed the people. Right? But there's something about having a World War II, a Vietnam, a draft era experience where, yeah, you turn to the older fellow next to you, your barber, your teacher, your banker, your mailman. Like somebody. Your uncle. Your brother. Somebody you know. Everybody's military connected in a war mobilized draft oriented culture. Nobody's military connected in a all volunteer force extended deployment culture.
>> Jeff Crane: Yeah.
>> Sara Hart: And so just the like that I think feeds the disconnect. And I did see that a lot with my dad. I mean Vietnam was a draft oriented situation, but it wasn't World War II. It wasn't -- I think America had a really hard time reintegrating a generation of young men that, you know -- most of whom didn't feel good about their military experience in any kind of clear way. You know.
>> Jeff Crane: But also true in World War II. But there's a great movie called "The Best Years --" I think it's called "The Best Years of Our Lives." It's set in 1946 and it's three combat veterans trying to readjust back to quote unquote "normal" American life. And as for that shared culture, I remember I was in grad school. There were some conflicts in the department I didn't even know about in the history department. I learned later. But there was one group of silverback professors, you know.
>> Sara Hart: Silverback.
>> Jeff Crane: Yeah. And they didn't like my advisor and he didn't like them and they didn't know what environmental history was all about. And there was one I liked in particular. He was a Civil War -- he's passed, but he was a Civil War historian. He was stunned how in to it I was given that I was an environmental historian which is a discipline he didn't think was real. But at the end of my time I was standing outside the lounge they would sit in, this group of silverbacks, and he overheard me talking with somebody and he's like, "Jeff, come in here." I went, "Okay." I walk in there and he's like, "You're a veteran?" I'm like, "Yeah." He's like, "And you were a paratrooper?" And he's like -- and I'm like, "Yeah. I was a paratrooper." He's like, "How do I not know that?" I was like, "I don't know. I talk about it all the time." I literally said that. So I have not changed at all. And he's like, "Sit down." And so they -- we sat down there and all talked about - went back to the military. And that could have been a useful connection earlier in my time there because my advisor thought it was stupid that anyone would ever join the military. Right? And he was of that post draft generation. It's like, "Why would you do that?" And I'm looking at him like, "We're different people, you and I." Because I -- I mean I joined out of a sense of service too. GI bill. Right? But I don't know how much I've shared with you, but I planned to actually make a career. I wanted to go airborne NSF and then delta. I never would have made it physically. Right? But, you know, I was unrealistic then. I was also in better shape, I will say. And then I got out and fortunately I had that GI bill which was built, you know, World War II to help people reintegrate in to society. But now it's there's a whole group of -- most of America's privileged enough that they don't have to serve. Right? And they don't know anything about service.
>> Sara Hart: Yes. And most of America is privileged enough that they don't have to think about it.
>> Jeff Crane: They don't have to think about it. Well, it's like the James McMurtry song. Right?
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. Right? "Operation Never Mind."
>> Jeff Crane: That's right. Well done. Well done. Yeah. "Operation Never Mind," baby.
>> Sara Hart: "Operation Never Mind."
>> Jeff Crane: If it's not on TV it's not happening.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. I think most of America is privileged to not have to think about the fact that their nation has been at war for over -- well over 90% of its history depending on how you count.
>> Jeff Crane: You keep changing that number. 95. 97.
>> Sara Hart: Like it depends on how you count, you know. Some people are like, "Oh. Did that count?" Like if we're doing -- if we're running --
>> Jeff Crane: Did we kill foreign people?
>> Sara Hart: If we're running like four, you know, parallel international military operations, but they're not like on the [inaudible] does that count? Right? So like the vast majority or our nation's history we have been at war. That defines our nation. We're militaristic as any nation's ever been as far as I can tell. And most Americans don't -- I would say they have the privilege not to serve and they also have the privilege really not to think about that, to think of that as somehow disconnected from them, to think of that as something completely separate from their experience upon which their experience does not depend. And I think that's not a privilege that I was born in to.
>> Jeff Crane: Right. Right. Or me either. And it's funny too because I was -- you know, I was in a military community. And we all talked about how we wouldn't join the military, and then we all did. Right? But I do have to take a shot at Liam and Roman here because I did listen to their amazing episode "War Games." So I have played video games. In fact I played video games before you were walking this earth, Liam.
>> Sara Hart: I know Atari.
>> Jeff Crane: And I've played "Call of Duty." I've played a bunch of them. And I think there's people that play these games and think they have a sense of what combat is. And of course unless they're feeling the bullet tear through their body they don't actually.
>> Sara Hart: There's people who watch movies and think they have a sense. There's people who read books and think they have a sense. There's people who were raised by marine combat veterans and reads books and think they have a sense. And I recognize the distance between me and combat awareness. Like --
>> Jeff Crane: There's just no way.
>> Sara Hart: There's just no way. This is like a singularity. Like can you imagine what childbirth is like? Like you may have watched it, but like no you don't know. And --
>> Jeff Crane: It didn't seem that bad. I was actually reading a novel while my wife was going through early labor contractions.
>> Sara Hart: Keep it down. I want you -- I'm near the end of my chapter.
>> Jeff Crane: Yeah. This person had twins twice so she knows.
>> Sara Hart: So I know this. But like I -- and I know, you know -- I know that combat experience is not something that I will ever touch, but I also know that I have experienced in my life a sense of responsibility to try to understand in order to just, you know, maybe be present in a kind of witness way, honest as a citizen, but also to try to help foster whatever healing our combat veterans or peace time veterans can manage in a society that's in denial.
>> Jeff Crane: Yeah. And so here's the mission, listeners. If you are sitting with someone and they start sharing their experience from Afghanistan or Iraq or something your job's not to give advice. It's not to point them towards resources. That could happen later. It's to listen and say things like, "That sounds really hard. I appreciate that you're sharing this with me. I'm thankful that I get to hear about your experience." And you've got to keep your body open and your eyes open. You've got to do that Rogerian listening technique where you nod along as they talk. They really need that space. It's a crucial part of their reintegration in society is somebody listening to their story. And it should inform how you feel the next time you've got another chicken hawk president who wants to go to war. Right? We have a lot of chicken hawk presidents, seems like.
Music Interlude
>> Jeff Crane: Welcome back, listeners, to "SNAFUBAR." I am having a wonderful conversation with Dr. Sarah Hart about her experience and feelings and ideas about the military and everything else. So I want to keep going here, and one of the things that has struck me because it's different for me is the profound respect you have for your father and the way he's a touchstone for you in multiple ways. You gave a talk about your father when you won lecturer of the year award. Afterwards I came up to you and said, "Have you thought about writing a book?" And you're like, "Yes I have." You reference him a lot. I have the sarge magnet on my tower. So I'd like you to talk about your father and obviously you're going to only share the things that you feel comfortable sharing about him and your experience, but I'd like to know more about his experience in Vietnam, for example. And then I think after that the obvious question is what was the impact on your father because I do feel like this is kind of essential to a lot of your approach to these issues.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. And I mean he was -- my dad was a real hero of a man to me. That's true. And he was a singular character. I mean I think anyone who knew him knows that. He was a singular character. He stood out in his way. He was exactly 100% himself all the time. And I don't think that's something that I see in a lot of people.
>> Jeff Crane: What does that mean? Like give me an example of what that means.
>> Sara Hart: I mean you just never wondered what Jim Hart thought. You know? Like he was -- and you never wondered if Jim Hart was in the marines and you never wondered if Jim Hart was getting bored with what you were saying. You never wondered. Like he -- he didn't hold back what he knew and trusted and believed in this world. And I think there was a time when he did and that's going to be -- that's going to be the '80s and it's going to speak to the impact on him, you know, of his war experience. But I mean for him he was really a true believer. And I think this is what -- one of the things about him that's made such an impact on me and that I know we've talked about is that, you know, you get a lot of people out there who are really, you know, self righteous or like adamant about their beliefs or like, you know, we've got a culture right now where you just like to hear people grandstand about what they believe and what they identify with and what they -- you know like this is like a --
>> Jeff Crane: You're preaching my -- preaching to the choir here.
>> Sara Hart: And so my dad was somebody who was a really strong believer, a total and full believer, but was not self righteous about it. Was not -- did not preach about it. Did not -- you know, he carried it in a way that like -- that was inspiring to me in a lot of ways. Like he didn't hedge on his beliefs in a way that I think like the skeptic in my academic self sometimes does. And I don't like it in myself. Like, you know, I want to weigh all the options and whatever, but like he didn't hedge with the infinite. Like he was all in. And he was okay to change his mind, you know. Like that happened. But and so that I think drove him to join the marines. He joined the marines at 17. He was not drafted. He opted in. He was himself raised, you know --
>> Jeff Crane: What year was he over in Vietnam?
>> Sara Hart: He was -- I feel like my brothers are going to call me out on this, but I want to say '69 to '71.
>> Jeff Crane: So he knew.
>> Sara Hart: He knew.
>> Jeff Crane: That this is post Tet. So he knew it wasn't going great.
>> Sara Hart: He knew it was bad. And he didn't --
>> Jeff Crane: It's not like going in in '65 where you might be actually fooled. Right?
>> Sara Hart: No. He knew exactly what was going on and he knew it was very -- it was a very bad time in Vietnam. You're not -- like we're in the middle of the thick of bad at this point.
>> Jeff Crane: America's coming apart.
>> Sara Hart: America's coming apart. He joined out of high school and he didn't come from a marine corps family. He came from an -- his dad was in the army air force. His dad was a weatherman. So his dad wasn't like, you know, "Jimmy, join the marines." His dad was like, "Jimmy, don't join the marines." You know? Like what are you thinking? So like he went all in on this because as he presented it as the only -- like he believed. He was a true believer in America and the freedoms and the promise and the opportunities of America. And so I still hold that. It's -- I know, you know, it is a little bit exceptionalist except that there's no reason why every country can't have this. But there is something going to be unique to every nation and I was just born in to and raised deeply and strongly with a very unique power of the American mythic narrative.
>> Jeff Crane: Yes. Me too.
>> Sara Hart: I believe in it. I'm not letting that go.
>> Jeff Crane: It's part of what drives us too, right, is like that narrative was wrong. That narrative. Are we trying to restore the narrative? Are we just taking it apart? Are we just pointing out all the hypocrisy in our society?
>> Sara Hart: Well, it's hard when you're a true believer to not -- you see like it's like you go and it's like this is my church of choice. And I don't like to see people spitting on the floor. You know? Like I don't like it. And I don't want to be rigid about it. I understand it's like it's a diverse confluence of -- like that's part of its charm. But yeah. I --
>> Jeff Crane: I know some certain things I say you just stay kind of quiet. We don't agree on everything?
>> Sara Hart: We don't agree on everything. And not - okay. So that's another thing about my dad. He didn't require agreement. When we were young we -- you could say anything you wanted. Like that was --
>> Jeff Crane: I require agreement?
>> Sara Hart: There was no requirement of agreement. So he's driven to go to Vietnam for his own really personal reasons. And I think to stick it to his dad a little bit.
>> Jeff Crane: Was it partially socioeconomic at all or was it patriotic? Or --
>> Sara Hart: There might have been some socioeconomic. He was definitely raised in a working class army background. His mom was no well in ways that I don't actually know the story of. She ended up in a sanitarium. So he was -- and he was raised by his grandma for part of it. Like there was a tumultuous upbringing going on. And I think that there was a kind of stability in the promise of something in the marine corps that yeah we see some of today when people join. But he did that and he did it in the full knowledge and full belief of what he was doing. His experience was he was a machine gunner. He was short.
>> Jeff Crane: Oh. M16.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. And so he carried the heavy gun and he carried it in the front. Yeah.
>> Jeff Crane: [Inaudible] the machine gunner.
>> Sara Hart: And he was short and he wore really coke bottle glasses. So like I don't know the names of the battles and I don't know like --
>> Jeff Crane: Usually roosters are like the big strapping fellows.
>> Sara Hart: He was stout, but not tall. You know, like I would -- he was not much taller than me. And though I tower over my nine year olds not many other people is that true.
>> Jeff Crane: Sarah's short.
>> Sara Hart: Like my dad was pretty short, you know, but he was -- he was thick. He was fit at the time and he was a machine gunner. And so I think it was a rough experience. What I know about it is a really rough experience. There's one -- there's very few stories that I know. One of them was that he in the middle of combat at one point he lost his glasses. And he was blind without his glasses. He had to get -- like he was blind enough that he would not have been drafted in to the marine corps. He had to get a dispensation to go in to the marine corps because of his eyesight which I think they gave a little more freely during the peak of Vietnam, but you know.
>> Jeff Crane: They were running out of bodies to put in combat. Yeah.
>> Sara Hart: So you can't see. Go ahead. But losing your glasses in the middle of the jungle is a big deal and there was live fire and there was enemy action and he - as he experienced it he saw an angel. And followed an angel back to his guys. And made it. And I don't -- you know, I don't know. Like do I believe in angels? Do I believe in heaven? Do I believe? Like who knows? Right? But like you've got this 18 year old kid in the jungle who can't see and he believes he's followed an angel back to his -- back to the company. And your - I'm not going to [inaudible] say that. You know.
>> Jeff Crane: Right. That's his experience.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. And kind of miraculous. And impressive. And I'm grateful to it because I'm here, you know. But so he had some very traumatic experiences that were also very spiritually fraught. For him Vietnam was a spiritual experience. And I don't say that like, you know, I don't know. Quaintly or cutely or like it was a good thing entirely. But it was clearly a deeply and profoundly spiritual experience for him and the -- you know, kind of skip over when he came back, skip over the next few decades, and the men who he continued to see in the 34 reunions like that was a spiritual bond. That was clear. Yeah. Brush and Fortner [assumed spelling]. I mean those guys were like they -
>> Jeff Crane: These are two of his brother names?
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. These were the two guys who -- like there were others, but Brush and Fortner were the two who he traveled to the 34 reunions that their battalion [inaudible] reunions annually to - mostly to see Brush and Fortner. And it was clear that those guys had a spiritual bond. But it took a couple decades. So that --
>> Jeff Crane: And Jason [inaudible] writes about this in one of his books about the Civil War. That's what he is, a Civil War expert. About the bond between. Everyone writes about this, the bond between people serving in combat.
>> Sara Hart: And I think that's part of --
>> Jeff Crane: That's the most important bond in combat.
>> Sara Hart: It's the most important bond. The guy in front of you is everything. He's everything that you -- every chance, every hope, you've got. And the guy behind you you're everything to him. And I think that that's part of --
>> Jeff Crane: You're not sitting there thinking, "I'm going to stop the dominoes from falling in to Laos and Cambodia." I'm just going to try to keep myself and my friend alive.
>> Sara Hart: I just want to keep [inaudible] you know. And Rick Hime [assumed spelling] who was he -- my dad joined with, like I know this name. I know what his face looks like. It's frozen at age 18, but I know what it looks like. He didn't make it. Yeah. He died in Vietnam. And I think that -- like he -- my dad kept a picture of him on the wall until the day he died, you know. And this is an 18 year old. And I think that that bond -- and understanding that sort of relationship and that sort of bond it's a different one than I had with my dad and we were close. And but that's a different one. And I think that returning combat veterans trying to maintain relationships with their family and their friends --
>> Jeff Crane: Because they come back different. That's the key point.
>> Sara Hart: Come back different. And also they have this model of total brotherhood, total sisterhood, total family, total partnership. Like total relationship. And it's hard to match that anywhere even with the people you most profoundly and deeply love and that you know this is your biggest commitment and you know like -- my -- I don't doubt my dad's love for his kids. We were everything to him. But -- but we were different from anything he had like -- coming back and trying to navigate a civilian world where your life is not on the line and then the person next to you's life doesn't depend on yours in the same way is hard for relationships. And so I think part of his return was trying to figure out that, trying to figure out how to make it through a world where there's like he had a big heart and a lot of love, but how to apply that in a non combat circumstance was tricky.
>> Jeff Crane: Yeah. No. I hear you. That's really powerful. Did he bring a lot of trauma back with him?
>> Sara Hart: Oh yeah.
>> Jeff Crane: To the degree you're comfortable.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. He -- you know, I'm not uncomfortable with this at this point in my life. I was young and so my memory is a little spotty, but I was born in 1978. So he returns. He marries my mom. He has my brother. She has my brother. He was -- my older brother was born in 1976. I was born in 1978. So by the time I come in to like awareness in like, I don't know, '81, even vague awareness, he's 10 years back. And so what I experienced was following 10 years of -- like based on the pictures and the stories and the like, you know, he tried to go to school. That didn't work out. He was a smart guy, but that wasn't the issue. And then he bounced around blue collar jobs. He got in to the counter cultural scene of the '70s. And yeah. Okay. So here's a good story. He -- we were born in -- and I probably told you this story, but we were born in - my older brother and I were born in [inaudible] Hills, California in southern California, eastern L.A County. And he was working blue collar factory jobs at this point. And you got - so Moonbeam was elected governor of California. Jerry Brown. The first time. And he decided he couldn't stay here and so he moved his wife and kids to Texas where he got a job with --
>> Jeff Crane: Like venture capitalists today.
>> Sara Hart: Like just like the venture capitalists today.
>> Jeff Crane: Well, there's been a big move of California venture capitalists moving to Texas.
>> Sara Hart: Runs from Moonbeam to where he gets a job. And we moved in to town just outside of Austin, Round Rock. And --
>> Jeff Crane: Also where the venture capitalists --
>> Sara Hart: Also where the venture capitalists now live. And he got a job in the state capital with Warren G. Harding.. And when my dad went in and tried to -- you know, he wasn't qualified for white collar work. But when my dad went in to interview and apply Harding said, you know, "I like the cut of your jib." Yeah. This was a nautical term, folks, for like --
>> Jeff Crane: No. There's a line from "The Simpsons" when he joins the navy and Homer raises his hand and he says -- he's like, "You have a question?" He's like, "Is the poop deck what I think it is?" He's like, "I like the cut of your jib." Yeah. Yeah.
>> Sara Hart: So he hires him. He's not really qualified. And so my dad wears like -- my first memory of my dad working was in the really dramatic Austin state capital building. Like we got to go visit.
>> Jeff Crane: It's a beautiful building.
>> Sara Hart: It's a beautiful building and we got to visit and use the early xerox machines. Like that was fun. You know, like it was my -- I entered consciousness with my dad as a white collar worker. It did not last long. Ann Richards came in.
>> Jeff Crane: Oh. She was great.
>> Sara Hart: That's not how she was referred to in my family.
>> Jeff Crane: That's why I jammed that in there where I could.
>> Sara Hart: I'm not going to say on the radio how she was referred to in my family, lord. And Harding went out with some like -- anybody who knows that history, it was pretty scandalous. We don't need to talk about that either. But the effect of that was that my dad lost his job. And from that point forward he was blue collar bouncing around unemployment. And so what I watched happen in terms of like, yes, did he bring trauma back, like I can see the effects of trauma in his inability to maintain regular like a job. And --
>> Jeff Crane: And that's one of the key markers. Right?
>> Sara Hart: Day to day. Yeah. It was just like it's not that he wasn't trying. Like it was -- like he couldn't maintain it. So he worked. He was a lineman. He worked -- like he did a lot of hard labor jobs. And he bounced around.
>> Jeff Crane: Was he a lineman for the county? That's the Glen Campbell song. One of the greatest songs.
>> Sara Hart: So yeah. So yeah. Yeah. He brought a lot of trauma back and it affected his ability to maintain a marriage, to maintain a job, to maintain a sober and stable lifestyle. He bounced around homelessness a lot.
>> Jeff Crane: You told me how he came up to Humboldt. I'm not asking you to talk about that, but I was like okay. Wow. So.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. He was -- I mean when I was in high school he was homeless half the time. He lived in his car. He lived in halfway houses. You know, and he was -- he was a responsible level headed dude so he would get the like manager gig at the halfway house, you know. And but it took a long time for him to find stability. And it's -- this is one of the things that I think like when I look at veterans and like why do I care. Why do I hang out? Why do I try to --
>> Jeff Crane: Why are you always at the VFW?
>> Sara Hart: Why do I go there? It's the American Legion. Why do I -- like -- I -- I think he could have used a lot of support. And it was really hard to know how to give that. And the degree to which families suffer because veterans do not receive support is like it cascades out through our society in ways that we ignore. And I don't want to like, you know, elevate my own suffering, but it's hard on kids when their dad is homeless in high school. It's hard on kids when they don't know how to navigate, you know, the stress responses of a hyper vigilant human. Like it's hard. And --
>> Jeff Crane: Rage. Violence. Those are - I'm not saying your dad, but that's oftentimes what --
>> Sara Hart: And hyper reactivity and just getting like -- he was -- my dad never raged out on his kids. Like that's one thing I'll say. Like he definitely saw red sometimes and he would describe it, but we were immune to it somehow. And like we really -- we really were. And in my experience, I don't know my brothers, we were like, "Well, I don't know. Remember when we lit the backyard on fire?" Yes. I do. And he was very upset, but then again it was August in Austin. Okay? So and maybe it was deserved. But the hyper - the hyper vigilance, the like -- you know, the man couldn't relax. So that was hard.
>> Jeff Crane: Yeah. I want to do a couple things here. We're going to jump back to this issue of vicarious trauma. So one, you know, you and I were talking a good bit about Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" when we were hanging our recently. And you're reading another book. So for our listeners because Vietnam is growing increasingly historic, right, and it's being, you know -- it's hidden behind other multiple wars now that have gone badly. But what's it like -- what's it like being a grunt in Vietnam? You know, in the elephant grass. You -- I'll say a little bit here. You pick it up. Basically, you know, you go out on a -- you know, a long range patrol ALARP and you don't have a tactical mission. Basically body count. Right? And you also have Viet Cong. You have regular north Vietnamese military. You have Viet Cong guerrillas who to paraphrase Mao Zedong "move through the civilian population like a fish in water." They're hard to identify. And a country that increasingly does not support you. And without a clear mission. There's no clear mission except to not let south Vietnam become communist. Right? So that's a -- let me take that phrase "fog of war" from the documentary, but you know at the grunt level which is a -- I think that's slang for marines. Right? Or is it --
>> Sara Hart: That's my understanding. Yeah.
>> Jeff Crane: That's what I thought. It was marine. That's why I'm saying a -- yeah. An infantry. Okay. What's that like for them? Right? Like I read somewhere once that 50,000 rounds were fired for every round that actually made contact with an enemy. I have no idea whether that's true or not, but --
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. I mean I've read a lot of books and I've -- I've listened to him and lived with him. But I -- my -- like my understanding is definitely secondhand. But I think that part of the experience of that war was a constant -- like there's no -- what do you do in a context in which there's no front line? Right? Like this is a war in which there is no front line. There are no uniforms that you can depend on.
>> Jeff Crane: Not trying to capture a position most of the time.
>> Sara Hart: You're not trying to hold -- you're not trying to hold any land. You're not trying to like -- winning the hearts and the minds of the people is --
>> Jeff Crane: You're in some strategic hamlet in the middle of the jungle, you know.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. It's even questionable because you're just - it's just you're not winning the hearts and the minds of the people. And so it really does come down to body count. And then like what is -- and watching for both sides which means if you are wandering through this unfamiliar terrain with high grass in water --
>> Jeff Crane: And you're 10 months in. So you're 59 days and a wake up to going home and this LT shows up from West Point that comes in and says, "Why are you using AK47s instead of M16s? And we need to get serious about the mission." You just decide to drop an M67 fragmentation grenade in their tent. Fragging was a huge issue. Right? But, you know, what's that feel like once you have learned that one -- the weapon you've been given by the United States is a crappy weapon compared to what, you know, the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese are using. But there is no strategic mission. There is no tactical mission.
>> Sara Hart: Your mission is to stay alive and you better keep your eyes open to do it I think is part of what I take from the literature and what I take from the experiences. It's like your goal at that point -- if you're 59 days away from that freedom bird, man, you're counting. Like you are counting those down. And you're not looking to take any risks. And you're not -- like if you don't have a clear objective, a sense of shared purpose, an organizing principle according to which you're fighting or for which -- that you're defending or any -- like what's the point?
>> Jeff Crane: As opposed to marching towards Berlin.
>> Sara Hart: Marching towards Berlin you kind of know what you're doing, you know.
>> Jeff Crane: And we don't want to overstate their issues, but, you know, you're freeing a country from fascism. You're ending the concentration and death camps and all that.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. There's a million problems with that, but you have a narrative that you can hold. And you have a goal that you understand and you have a sense of purpose that other people recognize.
>> Jeff Crane: And you can see the end point.
>> Sara Hart: And you can see the end point. And there is an extraction point. And there like that's real. And I think the lifelong debilitating psychological and spiritual effects that, you know -- that the men who went to Vietnam bore --
>> Jeff Crane: See and that's -- so I was looking for you to say something along those lines there because Liam gave us this great quote. Basically Jonathan Shay in "Achilles in Vietnam" says that a fellow soldier seeing another soldier die in combat is like a mother watching their child die before their very eyes. And then how does someone manage that, particularly in the context of a meaningless war? And then one of my questions then is would an understanding, an application, of moral injury have helped your father? I don't think that was a concept that was really bouncing around during his period after serving in Vietnam.
>> Sara Hart: Would a concept of moral injury have helped my father? I think he found it on his own, you know. I think he did. Like I think -- I think he recognized I think that what he was dealing with was a spiritual problem. I think he recognized that what he was dealing with was of sacred significance. And he sought help in religion and spirituality and churches and temples. And, you know, he really did like intentionally seek a language that was going to help provide a frame of, you know, moral spiritual psychological communal significance that wasn't otherwise provided to him. So, you know, one of my -- one of the things that drives my interest in moral injury probably is the pathway he took without any support, without any help. Like the number of letters and phone calls and office visits to the VA that he had to do, the years that went by with him pushing paper at them before they said, "Oh. You have a disability rating, sir. You may need some support to get by in your world." Like the sheer effort of continuous will that that took frustrates me no end. There was no support. I mean I think that --
>> Jeff Crane: And they budget's been slashed by the Trump administration.
>> Sara Hart: Yeah. And the people who actually work there I'm like those people are angels. Like good work. But the system that we have -- that we live within where there's not a cultural context of support doesn't -- it didn't offer that, you know. And so it was like buck up, man. Like that was -- that was it. And --
>> Jeff Crane: There's a lot of resistance. I remember with agent orange and that was the defoliant that was used to kill trees in the jungle so that the enemy could be more easily observed. And this defoliant fell on soldiers and it was -- it's Operation Ranch Hand. The people deploying it were getting sick and dying. And the government denied, denied, denied, denied. And it was Admiral Zumwalt I think that led the investigation. I read his conclusion. Rage. Absolute rage. And of course I do have to say in Vietnam ongoing health issues and birth defects from our use of these defoliants.
>> Sara Hart: Oh yeah. The civilian population in the lands in which we wage war those populations are decimated in ways that are -- that we can see echoed in our own veterans' health problems. Like they're not -- these are not health problems that are unique to Americans who come home. They're also the health problems of the people who are left there. And I don't know where to go with this without rage because here's the thing. You want to send a people to war. You want to go to war as a nation. You think it's worth it. Like I am not a pacifist. I think sometimes it's worth it. But if you're going to go to war then you accept the cost of war and that includes caring for the veterans who return which is more expensive than the war itself.
>> Jeff Crane: Seeing the news the rage of Achilles. Right? I mean this is exactly right. Right? The rage of going to war and the rage you're feeling, that we feel, about the lack of support, the costs that are never embedded in the actual cost of war.
>> Sarah Hart: Well, then that's a betrayal. And so I want to compare it a little bit to the age of -- rage of Achilles. But I also want to be like at least Achilles knew what was going on. Like our culture doesn't have --
>> Jeff Crane: But you need an Achilles rage to win that war.
>> Sara Hart: You need an Achilles rage to win the war. Maybe like if we can get more people a little upset we might be able to make change in this. I am appalled by the hypocrisy of a nation that easily goes to war, declines the opportunity whenever it's presented to think about that, and refuses to pay for the costs incurred by their easy acceptance of a martial reality they have no direct connection to. I'm appalled by that. So that drives my interest, I suppose.
>> Jeff Crane: That, listeners, is probably the best closing to an episode I can imagine. Thank you for listening and we can't wait to talk to you again in the "SNAFUBAR."
>> Sarah Hart: You've been listening to SNAFUBAR, a Cal Poly Humboldt production brought to you by the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. Our team includes me --
>> Jeff Crane: -- and me.
>> Abigail Smithson: Abigail Smithson, producer.
>> Liam Salcuni: Liam Salcuni, writer, researcher.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Roman Sotomayor, writer, researcher.
>> Sara Hart: You can find more information about SNAFUBAR on khsu.org.
Produced at Cal Poly Humboldt.
