[October 28, 2025] The stories of our war Veterans returning home are often disregarded as trivial and irrelevant. Besides that, we hear that these stories are not new. True enough! But one such story involves Homer’s epic work, “The Odyssey,” which is about Odysseus’ returning home after Troy. It deserves mentioning because it shows how not all returning Veterans are given parades, celebrations, and commemorations.
Homer’s story is about Odysseus, the King of Ithaca, and is one of the oldest and most important historical telling of a war Veteran returning home. The war hero Odysseus returns only after ten years of hardship where he battles monsters, escapes captivity, survives storms at sea, and suffers from his own bad decision making.
In his poem The Odyssey, Homer gives us the word, nostos, meaning homecoming or returning home. He combined this with the Greek word, algos, which means pain and grief to create the word, nostalgia. While “nostalgia” is a watered down version today of the ancient Greek, it still tells us of the suffering entailed when one returns from a life-changing adventure like war.
The story of Odysseus’s struggles is not meant to be taken literally. It’s an allegory with many hidden meanings wrapped inside the story’s weird twists and turns. For us Veterans, especially for War Veterans, the lesson is that coming home from war can be just as difficult as being in combat. Perhaps this is why I could connect with the story told and other Veterans who will read it.
The story of The Odyssey and relearning the lessons taken from it has been re-told throughout the ages. Hemmingway’s “Soldier’s Home,” the painting by Winslow Homer “Veteran in a New Field,” and William Wyler’s “The Best Years of Our Lives” are all telling us in their own way about the struggles of Veterans returning from war. Returning home from war is never a perfect event, it’s an agonizing process, even when all goes well.
The best scenario is when those Veterans reconnect with a trustworthy community and relatives who are willing to listen to that Vet without judgment. Veterans must be allowed and empowered to voice their experiences. And the listeners must listen, believe, and learn to repeat these same experiences. Whether these stories are told in a group setting or in writing, the Vet can heal better knowing that there are folks out there who accept him for what he is.
In The Odyssey, Odysseus returns home after those ten years but doesn’t recognize his home, nor is he recognized. He has to prove that he is home, even to his wife. To welcome home the war Veteran is the point of The Odyssey as much as it is the point of properly welcoming home today our Veterans. War Veterans Odysseus makes it home, proves himself, and sits in his rightful place.
NOTE: Thanks to Todd DePastino, Director of VBC Magazine for his valuable article, “Odysseus In America: Coming Home After War,” from which the inspiration for my article is derived.
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Thank you, Gen. Satterfield for showing us that returning from war and the problems we have are not unlike those from the days of antiquity.
Like the Iliad, the Odyssey is divided into 24 books. It follows the heroic king of Ithaca, Odysseus, also known by the Latin variant Ulysses, and his homecoming journey after the ten-year long Trojan War. His journey from Troy to Ithaca lasts an additional ten years, during which time he encounters many perils and all of his crewmates are killed. In Odysseus’s long absence, he is presumed dead, leaving his wife Penelope and son Telemachus to contend with a group of unruly suitors competing for Penelope’s hand in marriage. – from Wikipedia
True, and I also recommend that folks read the Iliad by Homer. Reading of the Greek classics – the ones recommended by educators – does us all good. Why? Because they give us stories that have been told, mostly orally, for the entirety of human existence. Nothing is better than learning from the mistakes and trials others have had, in order to improve ourselves.
Great recommendation but young folks today can’t read. Or, at least, they don’t have the patience to read.
VETERAN STORIES
“ In The Odyssey, Odysseus returns home after those ten years but doesn’t recognize his home, nor is he recognized. He has to prove that he is home, even to his wife. To welcome home the war Veteran is the point of The Odyssey as much as it is the point of properly welcoming home today our Veterans. War Veterans Odysseus makes it home, proves himself, and sits in his rightful place.” — Gen. Doug Satterfield. All our veterans should be reading Homer’s poem. Or at least attempt to read it. I know that the format of the poem is tough to read, but as you spend more time in it, the reading eventually becomes enjoyable. Or at least readable.
War veteran Odysseus … I never made the connection. Thanks.!!!
Sir, when you publsihed this article yesterday, I went to the link and read The Odyssey in its entirety. I must say that it took me a bit of reading to get into the story. This story is a poem and its does work the brain to move in that direction, as I’m sure many who have read it lately fan understand. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it more, as I had to research the background to many of the references that I did not understand. Thanks for bringing up Homer’s poem.
https://classics.mit.edu/Homer/odyssey.html
I hear you Larry. I started reading it and had to pause. It was a slow move thru the poem but I also enjoyed it and for many reasons.
……. And so begins the story:
Muse make the man thy theme, for shrewdness famed
And genius versatile, who far and wide
A Wand’rer, after Ilium overthrown,
Discover’d various cities, and the mind
And manners learn’d of men, in lands remote.
He num’rous woes on Ocean toss’d, endured,
Anxious to save himself, and to conduct
His followers to their home; yet all his care
Preserved them not; they perish’d self-destroy’d
By their own fault; infatuate! who devoured
The oxen of the all-o’erseeing Sun,
And, punish’d for that crime, return’d no more.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Odysseus
Good link. Go there and read about this great piece of literature.
Great article, sir. And thanks. Maybe I’ll read it some day. And thanks to Leo below for the link.
Good one, Gen. Satterfield. I never read the poem by Homer but maybe I just will.
The Odyssey is free domain reading, which means it can be read copyright free. Here is a link to the full text:
https://pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca/odyssey/open/download?type=pdf
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Same here, Leo. I’m going to try to read it. Good link.
I remember reading The Odyssey and other Greek classics in Freshman college Literature classes. I didn’t appreciate them at the time, but now have begun to re-read them for the enjoyment of reading and not for a grade. I also take my time and do a little research on what others have to say and a summary of the literature before I read it. That way, I can better understand what is going on in that Greek story. I recommend that technique. 👀
You know, Bobby Joe, I think many of us are doing the same. I didn’t like college so much because most of it was a waste of my time. College is a scam. However, some of it was worth it, like exposing me to Greek Lit. Gen. Satterfield is pushing my mind back into those times, and I like him doing that.
… and maybe read more of Gen. Satterfield. By the way, I have my dog at my feet and my bad cup of coffee in my hand. Now, that is discipline for ya.
Lady Hawk, I know that Gen. Satterfield never liked school but he forced himself through it.