Spiritual Struggle and Resistance to It: The Case of Vietnam Veterans
In Vietnam-Perkasie: A Combat Marine Memoir, W. D. Ehrhart suggests the spiritual meaning of his Vietnam tour—the growing gulf between the ideals with which he had enlisted, and his actual combat experience—using the metaphor of a world exploding into pieces. He begins his Vietnam story with an inci...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1996
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| In: |
Journal of law and religion
Year: 1996, Volume: 13, Issue: 1, Pages: 75-106 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In Vietnam-Perkasie: A Combat Marine Memoir, W. D. Ehrhart suggests the spiritual meaning of his Vietnam tour—the growing gulf between the ideals with which he had enlisted, and his actual combat experience—using the metaphor of a world exploding into pieces. He begins his Vietnam story with an incident that occurred virtually at the end of his tour, when he was nearly killed by a rocket grenade in Hue: "[S]uddenly the world was in pieces. I never heard the explosion. Only the impact registered." By repeating these same words near the end of his memoir, Ehrhart frames his entire story within this metaphor of a world blown apart, with an impact that registers over the remainder of his life.While the language with which he tells this story is quite straightforward and even prosaic, while his own lexicon does not include terms like "spiritual," Ehrhart’s work is a chronicle of contemporary spiritual struggle. In our radically non-religious culture, fundamental spiritual questions and insights are often disguised in "secular" garb, and discovered—particularly by young people—only when worldly conventional wisdom is brought into question. |
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| ISSN: | 2163-3088 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of law and religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/1051369 |