Two of these links are from a student who has dropped the class and therefore, I am unable to view my comments. Sorry!
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This is my final five hundred-word post for my Literature of Warfare class. In many ways, I am unsure of what to write since I have so many questions, thoughts, and opinions still unanswered about the war. Although, I have explained the psychological problem in prior blogs I want to re-emphasize how it is during the war, and how the war is never over. Throughout the whole semester, we have read thousands of pages illustrating war and different themes from each, but almost every novel displayed the psychological effects prevalent in war. Perhaps, Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers or The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien expresses the effect of war on soldier’s best, or maybe it is because the book is so fresh in my mind. Whatever it is, Fallen Angels affected me, and while I laughed at times, the harsh realities that this novel presented probably killed a little piece of me every time a soldier died.
What occurs during war is an interesting thing. Walter Dean Myers states simply in Fallen Angels that you die during war and hope that you are able to revive yourself if you return to the World (United States.) Richie Perry states, “We’re all dead over here, Monaco,” I said. “We’re all dead and just hoping that we come back to life when we get into the World again.” The sad realization of this quote is seen on the last page of Fallen Angels. Richie Perry is finally flying home, back to Kenny and Mom but rather then happiness he still is on a mission.
“I took the thin magazine from the pouch in front of me and began to thumb through it. I felt self-conscious, as if I shouldn’t be there. My mind began to wander, as I knew it would, back to the boonies. I was on patrol again. Monaco was on point. Peewee and Walowick followed him. Lobel and Brunner were next, then Johnson, the sixty cradle in his arm as if it were a child. We were walking the boonies, past rice paddies, toward yet another hill. I was in the rear, and for some reason I turned back. Behind me trailing the platoon, were the others. Brew, Jenkins, Sergeant Dongan, Turner, and Lewis, the new guys, and Lieutenant Carroll.”
I hope that soldiers at war now will be able to return and separate their war experiences from or find themselves through writing about it and enlightening others about the harsh rash realities of war. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien while fictional examines his struggles during war and after.
“I’m skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years later, I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy’s life with a story.”
Alex Horton returned from Iraq and reflects his experiences of the war in the blog One written March 28,08. Not only does Alex express the losses but he also displays while a year after his return home he is still blaming himself for not knowing the lost soldiers better and cannot forget.
“a tangible loss that transformed our lives. While in country, we debated the merits of war, our reasons for staying and the effects of leaving. But that didn’t affect our dedication to the mission. It wasn’t a free democracy in the Middle East or the quelling of sectarian violence. It was to bring everyone home alive.”
Lastly, although this does not necessarily explain the psychological effects of war it evaluate the lost which is another important theme throughout these books and something every citizen should not forget when bashing the war and soldiers in Iraq.
“…..It’s been a year since that moment, and Chevy’s death, along with those of 3,990 of our countrymen and women, are counted like vertical slashes in a tragic tally in the media to mark five years of war. The only Americans who see more than milestones and figures are the 3,991 families that shoulder the burden of loss, where the number one represents their sacrifice more than anything else.”
So, I am done writing about war. If you were able to catch while I talked in class about how great my imagination is then you would know that reading these books might have enlightened me about the war, it also deeply hurt me. I saw the child hanging in the concentration camp while reading Night by Ellie Wiesel, I dropped the grass made doll I made for the Vietnamese child when she blow-up, I felt confusion when Ronald died, I felt uplifted in believing the war was right by Rupert Brookes then I understood the reality of war from Wilfred Owen, and I shot a guy. And lastly, all I can say is think hard and long before you enter yourself in the military and be prepared not only to loss your youth but also be prepared to never forget, because You wont.
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Our media has a huge influence on the public’s belief of war. When we think of war, we usually think about The Patriot, Saving Private Ryan, Pearl Harbor or my favorite Braveheart.
“Fight and you may die, run, and you’ll live… at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin’ to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take… OUR FREEDOM!” (Braveheart, 1995).
While thinking about war movie I think about how movies desensitize people to the reality of war or how they are can be used as propaganda. Moreover, I see children wanting to be the hero and thinking that war is glorious. I must admit that I would never have presumed that military personals would actually think of themselves in a war movie rather then actually being in war. The only way I could comprehend this is due to the psychological toll that plays in war, and rather then acknowledging the death of a comrade, a soldier rather believe that his role has had a valor end and will eventually be played over and over again in a major theatrical presentation. Therefore, I was truly surprised while reading Walter Dean Myers, Fallen Angels to read about Lobel explaining how they are just playing roles in a movie.
“I’d be real nervous, except I know none of this is real and I’m just playing a part.”
“What part you playing?”
“The part where the star of the movie is sitting in the foxhole explaining how he feels about life and stuff like that. You never get killed in movies when you’re doing that. Anytime you get killed in a movie, it’s after you set it up.”
“You play a part when we were on patrol?”
“That wasn’t a patrol,” Lobel said. “That was a firefight.
“Anytime anybody is getting shot at it’s a firefight,” Lobel said. “Anyways, I was playing Lee Marvin as a tough sergeant. That’s my best part.”
This insert in the novel among others truly peaked my curiosity on whether or not soldiers in the Iraq War and if they find themselves playing a role. Therefore, I went on a mission to find if possible, if American soldier have fallen to this media’s view and play a role themselves. To my surprise, I located two fairly quickly. When a Team Units, by Mike T. posted April 2, 2008 gave an example purposely placing themselves in their own movie.
“It got to a point today where we were all so frustrated that we started calling our new home “The Last Stand”. We decided which actors would play us if a movie was to be made about us, and I was very lucky. I got Jude Law, so hell, it couldn’t be that bad of a movie! We all know what we have gotten into, and respect that all of us are nervous and even scared about the situation. We all have many things to go home to and we only hope to do it together and in one piece.”
The other blog I found tied the best with Fallen Angels because it examined how the soldier (Bill) actually found himself playing a role throughout his missions rather then the previously blog and how they jokingly focused on who would play their characters. The blog is called Running into Trouble by Alex Horton posted on April 8, 2008.
“Bill, always up front, poked his head out to scan the area. In response a volley of rounds passed by his head close enough to damage his ear and kick up dirt right next to him. He fell back screaming a line of obscenities, and we all thought, well, Bill’s dead.
“Bill was convinced he was in a movie, so he was one for theatrics. When he got up and we all realized he wasn’t dead, he stuck his M-4 around the corner and began shooting wildly. Unshaken, the persistent machine gunner kept up his fire.
….We were to turn the corner and charge toward the road, which was several hundred yards away. I thought of the final scene from Gallipoli, where the dude charges across no man’s land only to get gunned down after a few steps.
…..Cooler heads prevailed on the decision to charge, and we decided to go back the way we’d come and flank around to the neighborhood from the left. The first run was the most dangerous, so a few smoke grenades were tossed to hide our movement. Like mad we ran to the next house, going as fast as we could under our equipment. We sprinted through hues of yellow and green to reach momentary safety. I looked back to see action star Bill, running with one hand on his rifle, shooting through the smoke. He tripped and came crashing down onto his face, in between the houses. Fuck, now he’s really dead this time. He got up and finished the stretch.”
After reading the blogs the question still remains why act like and your in a film rather then believing each mission is real. As stated above, I believe it is a coping mechanism and aids in desensitizing the soldier, but there could be other possibilities. The only other solution to demonstrating these actions would be that they never presumed they would actually be able to die and portrayed the movies as what actually occurs during war. Furthermore, many enlisted soldiers are between the ages of eighteen to twenty-two and therefore, do not truly understand that war is horrific, and there is no hero.
Richie Perry states“Yeah, but you know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking that whatever I tell him he’s going to start thinking about heroes and stuff like that.” Pewee states “Heroes?” “You know, to a kid if you kill somebody and the somebody is supposed to be a bad guy, you’re a hero”
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Memory… is the diary that we all carry about with us. ~Oscar Wilde, “The Importance of Being Earnest”
The end of the semester is on its way and I am feeling the pressure of the whole semester coming forth. The rush of anxiety thickens my blood as I pop caffeine pills and drink coffee all night. Finally, I have completed all I can for the night and as I lay down to sleep the anxiety of school rushes back through my body. While I know if I do not sleep, I will not be able to study just as hard the next day, I cannot rest my mind. In this time of overwhelming stress, I look to find my colors.
Although I cannot bear to imagine the stress and fretfulness that occurs during war, even the regular rituals experienced by the average person leads to relying on the colors to cope with during difficult times. While reading this confusion on what the meaning of color is it also probably has apprehended you much as it did me and Mike. T stationed in Afghanistan when a squad leader advised him on COLORS.
“Brother, there are going to be times when you have to do things you never thought imaginable, things that would make any man scared for his own life and those of his fellow soldiers. But when it all seems lost and you’re about to lose your mind, that’s when the colors become your lifeline.”
The colors he states is our memories, smells, sounds, music, and anything which can make you at peace with yourself. Whether, it is walking through a freshly plowed field and smelling the aroma of newly cut grass, or if it is your son’s third birthday party, these memories can hold a soldier together. Colors make you bear the unbearable. Mike. T in the military blog Colors on March 31, defines exactly what Walter Dean Myers illustrates throughout Fallen Angels. Richie Perry, one of Walter Dean Myers main characters recalls memories about his brother Kenny and mother throughout the novel, especially during missions and watch duty. One of Richie Perry’s memories while disheartening illustrates escaping from the traumatic war by remembering home.
I looked at my watch. I still had three hours to go. I had time for a long story. I hoped that Lobel didn’t fall asleep. I swept my over the gate, the way they had showed us to on night maneuvers back at Devens.
I though about Mama. I worried about her. She had hoped that when I finished high school I would get a job and help her keep the house together. When I told her I was going to the army, she cried.
“ I might as well get it over with,” I had said , sitting in the tiny kitchen. Over the stove the old electric clock was five minutes early. Kenny always set it early in the mornings, knowing that by evening it would be late.
Mike T. illustrates his colors when stating
“I will find a place to isolate myself, to concentrate on a specific color that brings me back to a somewhat normal level. I miss the ocean, the gentle breeze from the shore pines near my house, the cat and dog chasing each other, the perfume of my lovely girlfriend. The songs she and I used to sing out loud and dance to together, or the long drives to nowhere. I miss her smile and touch, how they brought peace to my soul. How a splash of Johnny Walker and red wine aromas filled our kitchen on a beautiful summer evening. ”
Perhaps not all of Perry’s memories made him at peace with the war but they did relieve him from the struggles during long missions. As Mike T. stated they were extensions of the mind, body, and soul to alleviate as soldier from the harsh reality of war. Overall, Color is a wonderful world to indicate the memories which holds a person together through hard times.
Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose. ~From the television show The Wonder Years
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“Yes, we even doubted his resolve to exterminate us. Annihilate an entire people? Wipe out a population dispersed throughout so many nations? So many millions of people! By what means? In the middle of the twentieth century!” Night by Elie Wiesel
The previous passage came from the memoirs of Elie Wiesel in Night. This memoir described the devastation of millions of Jews being held in concentration camps. Much like Maus by Art Spilberg this novels displays how most Jewish communities did not comprehend what was occurring until it was too late. In class, we were left questioning whether enlightening people about the past would prevent the recurrence in the future?
Our professor addressed issues such as the book Night and if it has educated people not to display such cruel actions upon others. Well, I would love to state that “keeping history alive” through novels, memoirs or comic books have ended murder in the masses due to a person’s ethnicity, race, or religion, but then I would be wrong. Genocide occurred prior to World War II and will continue to occur. Sudan for an example had a mass killing spree for a hundred days, leaving 80,000 dead.
In part, genocide remains due to government policies, which make it difficult to become involved in other nations affairs. Moreover, many nations’ governments are struggling to define what consists of genocide and what action should take place to either prevent it or stop it. In my opinion, the United Nation is afraid to respond to acts of genocide in fear of starting something they cannot control.
An article in CNN, September 9, 2004 Powell calls Sudan killings genocide by stating that genocide consists of:
• Specific acts are committed — killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction of a group in whole or in part, imposing measures to prevent births or forcibly transferring children to another group;
• Such acts are committed against members of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, and;
• Such acts are carried out “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, [the group] as such.”
Sadly genocide still occurs and will repeat itself in many third world countries until a superior power will work with those national government to prevent such actions from taking place. Therefore, when you think Night and Maus has aided the human race in understanding the horrors of genocide and will prevent such occurrences from repeating itself please think of
BOSNIA
RWANDA
SUDAN
CAMBODIA
Or May 4, 2007, CNN article Cheadle acts to stop Darfur genocide explains his experience and opinion in Darfur during his travels
“There is one image from Darfur that haunts Prendergast. He was traveling through the desert with a colleague when they came across the bodies of about 24 young men left to rot in the 130-degree heat.
“No amount of time in Sudan or work on genocide ever prepares anyone sufficiently for what Samantha and I saw in a ravine deep in the Darfur desert,” Prendergast writes.
“One month before, they had been civilians, forced to walk up a hill to be executed by Sudanese government forces. Harrowingly, this scene was repeated throughout the targeted areas of Darfur.””
And if words are not enough youtube.com video on Genocide might enlighten you
So although the government will be to involved with money that they may not take action, Please DON’T forget
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“A Solider’s best friend, next to his rifle, is the postman.”
– Lt. Gen. Walt Boomer
During World War II mail carriers were able to carry single mail sacks which could now hold 150,000 one-page letters instead of the 37 mail bags needed for the same amount of traditional letters. And what did million of these letters consist of? Ramblings of sad, happy, and the un-eventful everyday life without their loved ones. During WWII much like today’s e-mails they were able to present military personal with insights of home and include them into the everyday life they are missing while away. As discussed in class this was an essential way to maintain their spirits. Mainly this blog is trying to compare the similarities and differences of the blogs of today’s era to the past letters of World War II.
Due to the blog assignments, we are required to write, I have read numerous amounts of military blogs. Similar to those letters we read last week in class, the military blogs lead to countless hours of reading about the uneventful nights they encountered during their missions or a new revelation that has occurred during their deployment. By making note of this, I am not trying to state that none of the blogs I have read have influenced my life nor have informed me of life during the war. Rather, I am trying to state that many military blogs ramble on similar to letters that were written during World War II in the book Since you Went Away.
To illustrate my point I will be using The letters of Mary Louisa Hernandez to Nicholas “Nick” Ortiz and the blog Unfinished Business by SPC Beaird.
A letter to Nick from Mary:
“My Dearest:
I’ve been very lucky these past weeks. I got quite a few letters from you. I received the one you wrote the 29th of September, Saturday, which was the 30th of October. But Darling, that was a swell letter. You say that why do we speak about the children we’re planning on having. That before we have them you must have me. Yes, my darling, I realize that but I do know that I will have nobody else but you. But, just as you say, we’ll have a little girl first but I do want a boy. You’re the boss. Yesterday I received an air mail you wrote Oct. 15. Darling, I do have the silver dollar and all the rest of the things that you send me.……”
A paragraph in the blog Unfinished Business:
“…One of the missions was to provide security while one of our PRT* officers answered questions during a live radio interview in which locals could call in. The kids from the nearby villages came out as usual looking for any handouts. But as my fellow PRT member Desert Dude said, you get hounded so much by the kids that you learn to save your generosity for the ones that look like they really need it, or the ones that are the least annoying. I gave a couple water bottles to a little boy and girl who were herding a big group of sheep around. I found out they were cousins. They must not have been more than 10 years old, though guessing age can be hard, as people seem to age much quicker here. Even the kids’ faces show the hard life they live, with the wrinkles and wear and tear of a person twice their age….”
Although, the reader of this blog might not agree with my opinion, I find that these two articles function as a way of bringing loved ones closer to their reality while leaving the random reader to uncover the reality of the soldiers’ uneventful missions or that Mary has received the silver dollar with pleasantry. And since stating this, I assume many would rather end reading my blog by assuming that I am inconsiderate, and misinformed rather then finishing reading, all the while, I am only trying to compare and contrast the similarities of WWII letter and the military blogs of today. By comparing and contrasting the letters to the blogs I find many similarities and differences.
The blogs and letter both try to update the military personal with information from home. While they letters could take days to receive sometimes they would take weeks, unlike the blogs that may take hours to write but five minutes to receive. This eliminates the imminent loss that we discussed in class during WWII. Furthermore, technology has greatly improved, which I find has brought the United States more awareness of historical news sooner rather then when our government wants its people to know. While the blogs are able to write more freely since censoring is difficult in this vast technology era, it is still important for the military personal to not inform blog readers of major details about their missions. Therefore, many questions are still left unanswered as in World War II. The major change I find is the quality of letters throughout my countless hours of milblog reading. The dialect in which the letters were written in WWII were more personable, and intellectually written then in today’s date. For example, the Unusual Suspect often uses profanity to explain events and even questions why they are fighting.
March 7, 2008, The Unusual Suspect blog:
“We had landed, anticlimactically, and still, we were herded like fucking animals, still not knowing a damn thing, and the cycle would never end. And there I was, finding myself in Baghdad, chomping at the bit to get outside the wire, to experience This Fucking War.
Barely 21 and dumber than shit, I was all sorts of optimistic, thinking we were going to do great things and kick lots of ass, GI Joe hero type shit. That we could be cool with the people, and bring the hammer down on the baddies.”
Overall, both letters and blogs still bring loved ones hope that their husbands, sons, wives, and daughters will return home safely and overall, is that not what really matters?
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In my Literature of Warfare class last week we discussed whether or not comics such as the required reading for the week Maus by Art Spiegelman could display the same importance and credibility a memoir or a movie could portray. While I raised my hand and stated that people differ in which style of literature or representation a subject they relate to or at least appreciate it, my professor rapidly declined my answer. Rather, he stated that a western country artist could not sing about the Holocaust and have the same effect on people such a Maus. Although I believe he is right, I believe he has over-exaggerated what I was trying to imply. Yes, Rascal Flats might be able to sing wonderfully about a lost loved one but they could not string out to a song about the Holocaust and emotionally effect people. Rather, what I was trying to state is while I enjoyed Maus, I was unable to grasp and apprehend the harsh circumstances the comic was trying to present. Obviously, people will have different emotional experiences with certain dramatizations of history.
Lastly to display what I actually meant during class since I was wrongfully represented I have gathered certain articles, movies, and podcasts representing past and present wars which effects me. Since not all of my examples will have the same effect upon you, it perhaps clarifies my point on how different types of litterature effects everyone differently.
#1: In fifth grade while I was in Canada, we were discussing the Holocaust. While I do not recall if we read any books regarding the Holocaust previously, we did already know the important details of World War II. To emphasize what we had learned about the Holocaust and WWII, one of my classmates grandmothers came in to explain her experience in the concentration camps. Her name was Mrs. Olwson and while I do not remember what camp she shipped to, I will never forget her story. She fully described her time in the camp with her sister and how she was separated from her parents. Moreover, because she was the oldest she felt responsible for protecting her sister. During this hour and a half speech, she divulged horrible memories of her experience. She recalled how her ribcage was fully showing and her how her body was only skin and bones by the time she was rescued. While I can recite her whole story from memory I wont. Rather, I will just emphasis the emptiness in her eyes. As she spoke her eyes did not fill with hatred for the German Nazi’s but rather piety and confusion. The concentration camp had spoiled her youth and replaced it with memories of rapes, torture and death. As a fifth grader try having an elderly women explain how next to where she got food, naked dead Jews were being thrown upon each other with no appropriate burial, and not have nightmares.
#2: The CBC new podcast War Crime Translator on 02/21/2008, influenced me emotionally on the crimes that occurred during the WWII. Moreover, it also educated me on how war crimes were still being conducted even after such a large time has past since the crime. During the podcast, the translator, Leonardo Simeoni, who had to read and meet the victims stated, “It was not translating fiction it was translating history.” Moreover he mentioned how they (victims) wanted peace rather then revenge for what occurred to their families. The full podcast
#3: These two film clip are taken from the milblog At War on November 16, 2007 by 1SG Troy Steward. While the clips from A War Film are extremely heart-felt, the blog was also extremely intriguing. Although being a student and having a job keeps me far away from the up-coming movies and their release date, I hope this one is out because just watching the trailers leaves me with goose bumps. .
#4: Lastly, Night the memoir of Elie Wiesel, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, dug into me with a double-edged sword when reading. Although the whole book is extremely emotional, the fight against his God troubled me and impacted me the most.
” Blessed be God’s name?
Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves? Because He kept six crematoria working day and night, including Sabbath and the Holy Days? Because in His great might, He had Created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death? How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers end up in the furnaces? Praised be Thy Holy Name, for having chosen us to be slaughtered on Thine altar? ” (Wiesel, 67)
While, I believe that the comic is perhaps influential to the younger generations I do not believe it should replace books such as Night by Elie Wiesel or The Diaries of Anne Frank. Furthermore, through my examples from above, I believe that different types of representations on a subject has many different effects on people. Whether they weep in despair or reflect. Whether they are left lost to comprehend what they just read. Or whether what they saw or read did not touch them, it does touch someone. And that is what I was trying to State.
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I am Canadian. Therefore, while people have been learning about the United States history I have been learning about my Canadian history. While some people describe Canada as being the “playground” of the United States, I call it home. Therefore, while American were re-capturing the Civil War in dramatizations in the South or marching in parades during Memorial Day, Canadians opened their ears to a poem.
This poem unlike Rupert Brookes does not glorify the war. This poem does portray war as honorable. Rather, this poem tells us that people have died. This poem describes that once a soldier died, another one would take his place. This poem stirs up tears in our eyes, crushes our hearts, and makes us want to fight. Therefore, while Rupert Brookes did not write this poem, it was a form of propaganda. This poem is called In Flanders Field.
by John McCrae, May 1915
“In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.”
After reading the poem The Soldier by Rupert Brooke, I reflected on the poem In Flanders Field because I felt that In Flanders Field was probably also a type of propaganda during World War I. Moreover, I find that the overall, writing is similar, along with the message it brings forth. For those how have not heard of Rupert Brooke or his poem Soldier I wrote the poem below.
“If I should die, think only this of me:
There’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concel’d;
A dust who England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air.
Wash’d by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Give somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven”
The Soldier and In Flanders Field, both represent soldiers fighting a war. In Flanders Field poem, it describes how the poppies that grow over the graves of the soldiers will always remind us of the soldiers who lost their lives for us. Similar to McCrae’s, Brooke’s poem describes a British soldier’s grave in an unknown territory that will always be marked by England. Although Brooke’s poem displays that fighting war is courage’s, I find McCrae’s poem describing that we have started this bloodshed and now we must fight the war that other soldiers have fallen too. One main difference is that In Flanders Field, I find that the poetry places guilt upon others while Brooke’s poem display only heroism for the persons death and no regrets. Overall, In Flanders Field is my Rupert Brooke’s poem.
So, while Americans will reminisce as their watching the Memorial Day parade or the British professors might open up a Rupert Brooke poem to read to their students about their heritage, I will be placing a poppy on my shirt and visiting my grandfather. I will sit and chitchat about his days in the war. I will listen intently to how he meets grandma. And I will hold back the tears about the people he loved who died.
While I have not seen first hand the tragedy of war, the poem, In Flanders Field brings tears to my face every time I read it. My emotions are probably similar to those in Britain who reminisce about Rupert Brooke’s poems. So although, I know this blog does not include interesting news articles or military blogs about what is currently occurring in Iraq, it does include historical poetry of past wars.
Now we are in a new war, and although I’m writing about McCrae the next generation will be writing about a new person perhaps fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan today. Moreover, the person writing about the next poet will find similarities and differences from the past previous poetry, but must of all they will have the same watery tears and tight throat that I had while trying to write this.
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“The road these soldiers went down took away their inner virginity–innocence never to be regained
Douglas Barber
War has a devastating effect on soldiers and their loved ones. In the last few weeks I have been reading poems and memoirs, news websites and military blogs. We’ve reviewed authors such as Rupert Brookes who glorified war for means of propaganda rather then, portraying the reality of war. We’ve also read the memoirs of Vera Brittain in a Testament of Youth who displays the real image of a female during World War I. While the war we are fighting in Iraq is not as brutal as World War I in the means of man fighting man directly, I find the psychological aspects of war still harshly influencing the young mans’ life.
While previously we discussed the poetry of three men during the World War I the prior week, I felt much more influenced by the writing of Vera Brittain. During this chapter I was emotionally affected by the psychological effects of war upon the young soldiers. Perhaps this was due to my friend who recently returned home from the fight in Iraq, and is experiencing constant nightmares and fear of thunderstorms; or perhaps it was due the article Exodus vs. Institutionalization from The Purgatorium. Although, the recently new blog from Purgatorium included sentences to draw in the reader with anaphora’s and climax’s similar to the poems from Rupert Brooke’s, this blog did not glorify war. Rather, The Purgatorium portrays war as a unforgiving wasteland with devastating affects on soldiers. Moreover, the blog realistically describes how soldiers are affected when they return home.
“I don’t want to be on those same streets, except be looking for dudes with guns on rooftops or in windows. I don’t want to cruise the main drag thinking, “Fucking Christ! This bastard is WAY too close to us! 100 meters, you dumb cocksucker! What’s he trying to get lit up? That car could be loaded with explosives! What? I’m back in the World? Ha, oh man, ha ha ha, that’s right. Good thing you’re driving huh? “
Whether or not a person expresses their emotional experiences that occurred during the war, or if they go on with life stating that nothing has changed and everything is the same…obviously it is not! News articles, personal testaments, and literature read in-class do not portray people returning home, going to college and starting family; therefore, living happier ever after. The Purgatorium and Testaments of Youth both expose the cruel reality that results from war. Testament of Youth ,Verra states, “In desperation I begun to look carefully through his letters for every vivid word picture…which suggested that no merely the body but the spirit that I desired was still in the process of survival.”The person writing the blog article Exodus vs. Institutionalization describes how he will not return home for his vacation. He states could not handle the sorrow and the overall emotional trip that occurs from seeing their loved ones for such a brief period. The “emotional trip,” the combat fatigue or the flashbacks that Exodus vs. Institutionalization article mention was described in 2004 by MSNBC.
The MSNBC news article reported the repercussions of serving our nation in the war has resulted in one out of eight soldiers returning home with post-traumatic stress disorder. Moreover, the article stated many soldiers health problems go without aid, since military personal do not report symptoms. Therefore, while, the lucky courageous soldiers that valiantly fight our nations war and return home, as hero’s they do not return home the same. Rather the innocent child they left as, they return home as troubled sleepless soldier lost in their nightmares to fight their own fight back to stability.
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The fascination of the internet has quickly changed the students life. Rather than going to the stale, gloomy library students now surf the web in the privacy of their dormitory. Since then, professors have utilized the internet capabilities to encourage students to research different resources to acquire more in depth knowledge. Now we have Google reader which helps sort information to best utilize the tools and resources of the internet. Due to all the technology listed above this edublogs purpose is to analyze the literature from my English 384, literature of warfare class and evaluate the information with other resources gathered from the internet.
The two news feeds I have acquired include BBC and NY times. I have always relied on the New York times for up to date reliable information. Furthermore, I find that BBC will provide me with a less biased point of view then NY times might. I will also be using Al Jezeera news website to compare and contrast the information I receive from NY times and BBC. Lastly, my podcast is from Military.com From the Editors Desk because while I am trying to gather true media coverage from BBC and NY times, I really want to know what the military men are hearing and moreover, what they enjoy listening to. This podcast has had conversations relating to new bands to the upcoming movie At War which I am truly interested in.
In addition, to the news feeds, I am using Slate magazine, and Milblogging to acquire a better understanding of the thoughts, emotions and life of the military personals. Overall, Google reader has already enlightened me throughly in the war and I much as other students are intrigued to utilized these new resources to write the most updated and valid information regarding the war for our class.
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