November 24, 2021

What is an Eternal Soldier and How Can it Help Me? | with Max Brown and Bridget Murnaghan | #21

1 hour 5 minutes

This is a special episode of The Neutral Ground Podcast. I have two guests: Dr. Kimberly "Max" Brown and Dr. Bridget Murnaghan. We're going to talk about the important role that ancient cultures play in understanding our modern world; we talk about the difference between warriors and soldiers; and we talk about one of the most important and impressive programs that I've ever come across for helping veterans: Eternal Soldier. In the words of Dr. Brown, "Eternal Soldier is archaeologists, classicists, historians, clinicians and veterans working together to present ancient material on war, warriors, and combat re-purposed for modern Veterans" (eternalsoldier.org/about). What makes this program so unique is that veterans read texts like Homer's Iliad and Odyssey in order see connections between how ancient cultures handled war and the struggle to find purpose back home and how we struggle with it today. It's truly a remarkable program, and I urge everyone to check it out and help out as best as you can. We also talk about one of my favorite characters in the Odyssey that virtually no one ever talks about: Elpinore--well, I talk about Elpinore, but it was wonderful to have two other people to speak with about him. We also take a really interesting turn in talking about the differences between Frodo's and Sam's visions of home in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. It's a fascinating discussion.

For more information about the magnificent Eternal Soldier program, please check out the following links:

Main website: https://www.eternalsoldier.org/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EternalSoldierorg

Here is some additional information about me. Social Media: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theneutralgroundpodcast/

Key episodes for understanding the show:

1) Postmodernism and a Joke Gone Too Far: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szjKBcbAW3I

2) Neomodernism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVHMm2A-fcA

3) Podcasting Rhetorics and Joe Rogan | My Conversation with Matthew Jacobson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsOMhCZORts

4) Fighting the War Not Seen | My Conversation with Tim Overton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJjGit4H_Q8

5) Hit Song, Hit Commercial, and Still More to Do | My Conversation with Musician/Actor DC Glenn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DyFYIfEFR4

Would you like to support the efforts to bring civility back to meaningful discourse? Well, you can, and with little more than a click of a button.

Subscribe/follow the podcast on whichever platform you're currently using to listen to The Neutral Ground Podcast.

Leave a rating and a comment wherever applicable. This will really help get the message out to more people. Let a friend know about the podcast by emailing them or posting an episode to your social media accounts.

Visit the main website for The Neutral Ground Podcast at https://theneutralgroundpodcast.com/ and send me an email or leave an audio message for me with some thoughts or questions about one of our topics. I might end up using it on the podcast for all of us to grapple with together.

Buy me a cup of coffee...err...I mean Ko-Fi at https://ko-fi.com/theneutralgroundpodcast. Donations are always appreciated and are useful to help fray the costs of maintaining The Neutral Ground Podcast.

Finally, and most importantly, just be kind and patient with others in conversation. Try to model for those around you the difference between conversation and debate. Debate and dialogue are not the same things. We need more dialogue in our everyday speech, and we need to limit debate to where it is most needed and useful.

Any one of the above items is equally important to me. I am ge

...more

View all episodes

By Dr. Joe Meyer