Sunday, January 4, 2009: 2:50 PM
Metropolitan Ballroom East (Sheraton New York)
Since the nation’s founding, the U.S. military has searched for an effective way to deal with homesick soldiers. During the Revolution, they encountered little sympathy; officers condemned them for lacking civic commitment and courage, and they were publicly shamed for expressing their homesickness. During the 19th century, homesick soldiers found greater sympathy. American medical and military authorities adopted the European terminology for the condition–nostalgia–and treated soldiers afflicted by the emotion, sometimes admitting them to hospitals, sometimes furloughing them. This approach continued into the 20th century. During World War II, military doctors used nostalgia as a formal diagnostic category; the Surgeon General listed it as an illness through the mid 1950s.
Yet during the 1950s, doctors gradually abandoned their conceptions of homesickness as a medical condition, and since then there has been little discussion of how adults–whether soldiers or civilians--should cope with their yearnings for home. The emotion is now seen as a problem of youth, easily solved through early intervention and training. Adults are expected to conquer the emotion and accept the tolls of a mobile lifestyle. Nevertheless, many experience homesickness, particularly when placed in situations where they have little control over their movements.
This paper examines one chapter in the history of homesickness, exploring how soldiers during the Korean and Vietnam Wars dealt with the emotion. Soldiers often displayed their homesickness, despite the fact that they were living in an age that had little patience for the homesick, and functioning within a military that showed declining sympathy for the condition. The paper examines expectations for soldiers’ emotional comportment and individual soldiers’ efforts to meet such expectations. Using journals, letters, military regulations and medical manuals, this paper looks both at cultural ideals and lived experiences, and attempts to show how a modern martial ideal gradually emerged.
Yet during the 1950s, doctors gradually abandoned their conceptions of homesickness as a medical condition, and since then there has been little discussion of how adults–whether soldiers or civilians--should cope with their yearnings for home. The emotion is now seen as a problem of youth, easily solved through early intervention and training. Adults are expected to conquer the emotion and accept the tolls of a mobile lifestyle. Nevertheless, many experience homesickness, particularly when placed in situations where they have little control over their movements.
This paper examines one chapter in the history of homesickness, exploring how soldiers during the Korean and Vietnam Wars dealt with the emotion. Soldiers often displayed their homesickness, despite the fact that they were living in an age that had little patience for the homesick, and functioning within a military that showed declining sympathy for the condition. The paper examines expectations for soldiers’ emotional comportment and individual soldiers’ efforts to meet such expectations. Using journals, letters, military regulations and medical manuals, this paper looks both at cultural ideals and lived experiences, and attempts to show how a modern martial ideal gradually emerged.