Repeat of "In-Depth" with Sebastian Junger Scheduled for 1:00 AM on C-Span2

C-Span2 ^ | 07/03/16 | Intolerant in NJ

[Intolerant in NJ]

This month's "In-Depth" on C-Span2 featuring Sebastian Junger is scheduled for repeat tonight at 1:00 AM EDT. Junger wrote the original journalistic version which was adapted into the movie "The Perfect Storm" and has produced several award-winning documentaries including "Restrepo", about his time embedded with our troops fighting in Afghanistan. His latest book is "Tribe", dealing broadly with his theories about people's need to belong to groups for meaning and purpose, and more specifically with his interest in war and how, although it is a dangerous and frightening experience, those involved in fighting actually value the experience and can come to miss it and the group cohesion it brings once it is over. Junger served as a war correspondent in Bosnia and during the Afghanistan campaigns, and presents a number of anecdotes to illustrate the value membership in the military unit comes to have for the unit's members beyond mere survival on the battlefield. He responds to calls and emails from viewers and has several interchanges with veterans from various wars talking about how their experiences had affected them, for both the better and the worse.

[Intolerant in NJ]

Junger describes himself as a "political liberal" but comes across as thoughtful and balanced and clearly has much empathy and understanding for those in the military. Although he seemingly doesn't recognize it, he is apparently still struggling with reconciling some of his personal views - he is very concerned with the current state of civil discourse such as the "mockery of our president" which he feels weakens the group cohesion and stability of society, but also weakly affirms the rights of people to protest wars they find objectionable, which of course can also weaken national cohesion and sense of purpose. I was going to watch the first few minutes of the program to get a sense of what Junger was about, but found the discussion interesting and challenging, and stayed for the whole three hours. Worth cranking up the DVR to take a look, especially on July 4th.

[DUMBGRUNT]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3438436/posts

PTSD is a complex condition with vexing moral and psychological aspects, but in Mr. Junger’s view it’s mostly about men being depressed because they can’t play war anymore. This odd, juvenile rendering of military life is a problem with much of Mr. Junger’s recent work. He presumes to speak for veterans, but he has never been inside the prison. This makes him, as an Iraq veteran friend of mine put it, “a war tourist.” Mr. Junger is never able to bridge this divide between himself and his subjects, and he ends up leaving his reader stranded.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3438436/posts

He makes some very good points, but Sebastian Junger is not and never was a grunt, or anything close.

[Intolerant in NJ]

In this program Junger differentiates between short term PTSD, which he sees as a residual of the heightened state of alertness naturally encountered in a combat situation and somewhat adaptive, and a more long term condition which he says is complex and debilitating and beyond his capacity to say much more about - he notes several times that he’s not a psychologist and therefore has few opinions on the individual, personal dynamics of what affects people’s experiences under most situations - an anthropologist by training, he’s primarily concerned with the social and cultural benefits and limitations to membership in various groups - at times his discussion does become so generalized that belonging to a military unit and having been through combat seems no more dramatic and harrowing than having been on the football team or having belonged to the local scout troop.....

[headstamp 2]

Yes, I remember my nephew when he came back from a year in Afghanistan. It took him about 2-3 months just to wind down from being “on the stick”. Drinking a little too much.

I put him in touch with a cousin who is a Vietnam vet. They talked for a solid 8 hours one day. I was amazed at the commonality they had with each other’s experiences. Something I could never even begin to understand.

He’s fine now after more than 3 yrs. home. Unfortunately he’s going back.