Oregon Friends of CG Jung managed to convince Karl Marlantes to come talk here in Portland two weeks ago, and I'm still not over it. Marlantes is the author of Matterhorn, a novel based on his own experiences as a Marine during the Vietnam War, and the non-fiction What It Is Like To Go To War. You need both books. Buy them. Read them. Recommend them to others. This man has been there, done that — and then spent the next 40 years dealing with it.

The following quotes are from What It Is Like To Go To War:

"Part of us loves to destroy…  this feeling is just the other face of creativity, in Jungian terms, the shadow side of creativity…  What's scary is that it is far easier to take the path of transcendence through destruction than to take the path of transcendence through creation. And the destructive path gets easier as technology improves, while positive creating, whether spiritual, artistic, or commercial, is just as hard as it ever was." p. 63

Isn't that what Yoda said? The dark side isn't stronger. Just easier. Faster. More seductive.

"You can't be a good person until you observe how bad you are. It is only when the evil is conscious that it can be countered." p. 64

"The transcendent realm one reaches through violence is one that society says it condemns but in fact celebrates everywhere, on film, on television, and in the news. It is because of this split that these feelings are so very dangerous. This split is like the wicked fairy who isn't invited to the wedding but who will get her due. It is the darkness that haunts the lynch mob that in the daytime is dispersed as lawyers, doctors, and church aldermen." p. 66-67

"We are legion, says the Bible. We have a shadow, says Jung." p. 68

"Once we recognize our shadow's existence we must resist the enticing step of going with its flow. This is the way of Charles Manson and terrorist cells. This is also the way of filmakers who suddenly get into its dark power and splatter it all over the screen in slow motion. This is the wrong way to relate to it." p. 69

"The critical psychological issue about weapons technology is the ability to distance the user from the effects. A constant martial fantasy is the 'clean kill'… This clean-kill fantasy avoids the darkness. It allows the hero trip without any cost… Even the language is getting neat and tidy, as in 'surgical strike'… Numbness and hypocrisy aren't learned in boot camp. When it comes to inurement to violence, boot camp is just a finishing school… Getting used to the extremes of violence in combat is just another level up from our everyday training. The circuitry is all in place, having been wired long years before. All that's happening is an increase in voltage. The problem is, however, that the voltage has been steadily and rapidly increasing in all of the entertainment fields… our psychic wiring is getting sized upward for higher and higher voltages." p. 71-73

"If you don't recognize your shadow sides, you'll be likely to cause a lot of damage trying to do your heroic deeds." p. 85

"Then we started seeing some hard-to-stomach reality on television. [during the Vietnam War] Rather than accept that this terrible reality was the result of our inflated ideas of being the good-guy soldiers we thought we were, and accept that we'd buried deeply our own despised Nazis and Tojos, it was easier to throw that darkness onto the people we asked to do the fighting. So the Vietnam veterans came home catching everyone's shadow, portrayed as dope-shooting,coke-snuffing, baby-killing mercenaries. They were far from that." p. 86-87

Well, this is ridiculous. I'll end up quoting the whole damn book.

Go buy Marlantes' books yourself:  Matterhorn and What It Is Like To Go To War.

Then read them.

We owe the people who fight our wars for us. Big time.