Similar to Ann Jones, Nancy Sherman analyzes the inner battle soldiers wage, digging deep into the moral conscience of soldiers. Using her novel, The Untold War, Nancy Sherman makes it her goal to bring more awareness and understand to the American public, the moral psyche of the soldier. As she puts it, “We need to begin to cultivate the kind of empathy that allows us to support our soldiers properly when they return home to our communities” (Sherman, Prologue). Taking more of a philosophical approach and occasionally drawing in famous philosophical writers, such as Platos,and Socrates, Sherman highlights the extreme amount of guilt and shame that soldiers face while also drawing in the hardships of amputees, something that the American public are often shielded from in their idealized view of war and soldiers. Early on in her novel, Sherman draws in the marine corps well known quote, “always faithful” explaining that it is the …show more content…
It’s this myth that the soldier will be invulnerable both on the battlefield and off that makes it so difficult for many soldiers to reach out, despite them feeling as they do. And this in turn, the feeling that if one admits they need help they’ll be seen as week, causes these soldiers to bottle it up and inflict it on themselves only to unintentionally inflict it on their immediate loved ones and daily lives, as mentioned earlier in the recount of Ann Jones novel (Sherman, 7). One of every five returning veterans from Iraq is suffering from PTSD and suicide rates and suicide attempts among soldiers is the highest ever recovered and has continued to rise through the course of