Edna Lomsky Feder Analysis

The motivating question for this article would be how does our own personal memory procreate a different interpretation than others who were in the same event or dealt with the same situation? In the article “Life Stories, war and Veterans: On the Social Distribution of Memories” by Edna Lomsky-Feder it talks about how many war veterans have different interpretations of being in the war whether it was a traumatic experience that obstructed development or an heroic event that left you feeling empowered (p.82). What tends to be remembered the most are the experiences that contain high intensity levels of emotion for example when you endured happiness in a battle won or sadness seeing another soldier die. The main argument in this article is

that each war veteran has their own personal experience of what it was like to live and fight in the war creating their individual memories of what consciously took place to them. All of the individuals who took on the war will be complied into a memory field expressing their different interpretations of what took place and how their thoughts/opinions will be represented and encoded. Their testimony can pose a potential risk to society being highly critical of the hegemonic memory. However, respect is even to them at any cost because they did their “duty” to serve our country. I found it interesting that society tends to view war veterans as survivors because we see their lives has having more value that contributes to the definition of proper masculine man. These men are most valued in our country because they make personal sacrifices to leave their families, put their dreams on hold, fight in combat, witness death and be a part of something that can be viewed as both a traumatic experience and a heroic deed. The war veteran’s individual memories and interpretations of how they saw the war is relevant to our course study because it shows how their individual experiences shaped their mind set in what to express to society about the war and the factors that contribute to their lives now from being a part of the war.
Two questions about the reading:
Toward the end of the article it talked about men that can control and regulate their emotions to meet social requirements have hierarchy in their memories, why wouldn’t the soldiers who sacrificed more like losing limbs and body parts have the same hierarchy?

What causes some soldiers to return home with a form of stress disorder or schizophrenia and others return home feeling empowered? If all war veterans went through similar experiences at war might society think that their outcomes should be similar as well?