Does itMatter? A Soldier’s Experience Over Time “It’s about that thing inside humannature thatmakes


us be able to go at somebodywith a sharp object and stick it in their chest.Howandwhy does a person do that?How can a person do that? We do it. Sometimes we do it because we think we have to. We have no choice; we’re defending ourselves. Sometimeswe do it for honor.That’s reallywhat the piece came from: trying to understand the war-like impulse. What does it do to you to be at war? What does it do to you to do violence to someone?What do you become ifwhat you’ve been doing is pushing sharp objects into somebody else? Even if you’re doing it from thousands of miles away, or pushing a button on a computer, it’s the same action. ” - Lisa Peterson, Co-Author and Director of An Iliad, First Rehearsal at NewYork TheatreWorkshop


An American Soldier in Vietnam, 1965


The Poet in An Iliad discusses the experience ofwar for the rank and ile soldiers aswell as the heroic igures who led them. He paints us pictures of the horrors of the front line and the isolations of time, distance and loss,whichmake daily life hard andwillmake rejoining society dificult for thosewhomake it home.


Whilewar has changed and channels of communication havemade theworld seemsmaller, these same issues resonate through the years, haunting the soldiers of everywar. Society has developed greater awareness of the dificulties soldiers face both during their time serving their countries and upon their return. Steps have been taken to increase support for those suffering fromPTSD or struggling to put the pieces of their life back together, as well as for the families they leave behind. But the essential problems endure. For co-authors Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare, the constancy of violence and the human response to it is central to themessage of the Iliad. It is from all wars that the inspiration from the piece has been drawn. While watching the piece, the audience imagines not only the battleield of ancient Troy, but also the trenches ofWorldWar I, the irstmodernwarwhich so horriically introduced a newtype of combat to theworld, or the isolating experience of a soldier in Vietnam, or Chechnya, or Gaul.


In the letters, diaries and poetry of soldiers throughout history, we read descriptions of the physical and emotional dificulties of life on the frontwhich, perhaps surprisingly, have changed little since the TrojanWar.We see the conlicting emotions of rage, grief and sympathy,whichwe see in Hector’s loss of control as he tries to defend his city. We see the pain of losing friends, which drivesAchilles to revenge after Patroclus’ death.We see the disorientation of returning to a homewhich has inevitably kept goingwhile the soldierwas gone. This resonance between the world Homer described so long ago and these records of those who have served in our time shows, more clearly than anything else could, the enduring power of his story. The next two pages contain excerpts fromthewriting of actual soldiers.


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