Big Think Interview With Nancy Sherman | Big Think

Big Think Interview With Nancy Sherman

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A conversation with the Georgetown philosophy professor and author of “The Untold War.”

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Nancy Sherman:

Nancy Sherman is a Distinguished University Professor in the Philosophy Department of Georgetown University. She received her BA from Bryn Mawr College, her PhD from Harvard, and her MLitt from the University of Edinburgh. From 1997 to 1999 Sherman served as the first Distinguished Chair in Ethics at the US Naval Academy. She has taught at Yale, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Maryland, and has trained in psychoanalysis at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. Since 1995 she has consulted for the U.S. Armed Forces on issues of ethics, resilience, and post-traumatic stress, lecturing at the Uniformed Services University, Walter Reed Army Hospital, the National Defense University, and elsewhere. In October 2005, Sherman visited Guantanamo Bay Detention Center as part of an independent observer team, assessing the medical and mental health care of detainees. She has served on the Board of Directors for the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs.

Sherman's books include "Aristotle's Ethics: Critical Essays on the Classics," "Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philosophy Behind the Military Mind," and her most recent, "The Untold War: Inside the Hearts, Minds, and Souls of Our Soldiers," published by W. W. Norton & Company in 2010.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Nancy Sherman:rnNancy Sherman, author.

Question: What did yourrnresearch for “The Untold War” consist of?

Nancy Sherman:rnWell, I’m a philosopher, so I was thinking of soldiers in terms of the meaning,rnthe philosophical meaning of their stories; the emotions and the deeprnemotions. And I interviewed a lotrnof soldiers, probably about 30 to 40 soldiers of the current wars includingrnsome from Bosnia and Vietnam, and my dad, who is a World War II veteran and Irnreally wanted to go beyond just stories about trauma, of which many soldiersrndon’t suffer, though of course we know of many who do, but I wanted to talkrnabout the feelings everyone seems to come home with of trying to make moralrnsense of what they’ve seen and done, even when they do everything right by war’srnbest standards. So, it was talkingrnabout the moral weight of war, the moral burdens of war.

Question: How did yourrnfather’s war experience inform your war research?

Nancy Sherman:rnWell, my dad actually just died December 15, the days I was putting the finalrntouches on the book. And I alwaysrnknew he was a World War II veteran, and a medic. He never fired a rifle, or gun, during the war, but alwaysrnhad this sense that war was hell and he didn’t want to talk about it like manyrnof his generation, a member of a laconic generation. And when he died, I was cleaning out his effects and foundrnin his pockets his dog tags. Andrnhe never told me, and I never asked, and so it was 65 years of carrying his dogrntags. They were an identity to bernsure, but they are also a moral identity, or a moral burden. And I thought he really carried itrnsilently, he thought it wasn’t polite conversation to talk about the war. When I probed, he would say, wellrnaboard the QE1, the Queen Elizabeth 1st, and the Queen Mary, it was a slaughterhouse. It was a butcher shop withrnamputated legs and men that were really, really suffering. This one would have a leg and that onernwon’t. And so, it was painful,rntears would come down and I realized that he never wanted to watch footage ofrnthe war, and he wasn’t traumatized, I don’t think. He was a very healthy, resilient guy, but if his war wasrndifficult it was so for many and I don’t think war should be a private burden,rnwhether it’s a draft war or a volunteer force, or you are National Guard, or arnmember—well contractors is another story; a complicated story, but both goingrnout to war as part of the Reserves.

So, he was, I think, the unconscious reason, you mightrnsay. I also have an uncle whornfought in World War II as a Marine, bayonet, Okinawa, really ugly. And he did suffer PTSD, Post-TraumaticrnStress Disorder. But the bookrnwasn’t really about psychological injuries that we know about that are veryrnacute. It’s about the every dayrnordinary mix of feeling exultant about the battle and exuberant and it’s therntime of your life to shine, for some. rnAnd that’s the only way that you could go in and be a sniper who isrndefending himself and his buddies and for victory or survival.

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