Coming Home

As we talked about the hero's journey in class on Thursday, I brought up the idea that for the modern hero, there seems to be no triumphant return.  It's a theme that's kind of stuck in my head for the last few days...Why can't our heroes come home anymore?  Upon reflection, I think it goes back to the Korean and Vietnam wars.  In earlier wars, soldiers were welcomed home with ticker tape parades, brass bands, and praise, much like the heroes in the mythologies of old.  Now, these soldiers didn't come home all the way... they still left parts of their identity in the war, on the battlefields halfway across the world; but people at home made an attempt to understand.  But in Korea to an extent, and certainly in Vietnam, our soldiers returned home to a country that would not understand, partially because of political climate, partially because the modernization of society has taken us farther and farther away from the raw reality of life and death which becomes so apparent on the battlefield.  The gulf widens even further with each passing year, as "normal" people become ever more isolated from the brutal, tough nature of life.  Just as we can never really understand the misery and squalor of the poorest of the poor in third world countries, we can never quite grasp the world our heroes -- be they soldiers, firemen, police, etc. -- see when they come face to face with the ugly reality where life is separated from death by no more than a strand.  There seems to be some latent recognition of this fact that spills into our literary consciousness, and our storybook heroes become tortured, lonely people -- no less noble for it -- who are unable to connect with a world that cannot see them as they are.