Please take a moment to think about war. I don't mean the general topic, imagine yourself in the middle of nowhere, a gun aimed at someone's forehead. It’s your life or theirs. What gives you the right to take someone's life? They enforce that it's for the greater good. It’s all to save people's lives, and kill almost as many as you do save. War is dark and there is no getting around that. Many people don't come back the same. Many lives have been irreversibly changed for the worse. Don't think about the collective, think about the singular. This is a mere section of a letter from a person named Thomas Harold Watts, part of a reserve, written during the first world war.
“We live in a trench and it is a mercy it don’t rain otherwise we’d be
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washed away. The fighting just lately has been terrible. Our shells knock the enemy all ways and the sight in the trenches that we take is awful. We wear our respirators because of the awful smell of the dead. I’ll never get the sight out of my eyes, and it will be an everlasting nightmare. If I am spared to come home, I’ll be able to tell you all about it, but I cannot possibly write as words fail me. I can’t describe things.” This is what real war is.
This is what so many people went through to secure your future. You live a formal life going to school, going to your jobs, and these heroes went to hell and back and lived to tell the tale. There were many who didn't make it back. This is why we have remembrance day. To honour our of our soldiers that perished to secure your life. During the first world war, it’s estimated that around 37 million people died. Then you’re here mad because you can’t hang out with some friends tonight. Next time you want to complain about how your life is so hard, think about war. Don't forget all the other war as well! The cold war, world war 2, the civil war, the 7-year war. Millions of people have had to go through this nightmare for centuries, each time getting worse and worse with the advance of weaponry. To many, the death tally is just a number, but each one is a person just like you or I. Each person had a family, a childhood, a life. As we move forward, wars won't stop. It’s a necessary evil, and no matter how hard you hope and pray, the dream of world peace with stay that way, a dream. As Long as there are sentient beings in this world, the fight for power will remain. And as we move ahead, as we change, Remember, War… War never
changes.
According to Christopher and James Collier,”War turns men into beasts.” It is true because many people are willing to
In a single quote to wrap up the book “When you stop believing, you stop going to war”. This quote is very true when we stop belief in the cause and the myth it will be different.
The state of humanity is brittle and we need to start learning if we are to continue as the superior species. Wars, as the state we are in now are inevitable and more will happen in my lifetime and probably my children’s as well but that's not to say that's how it has to be. Just because that's how it’s always been doesn't mean that how it must
Why does the world need to kill two million men just because two countries can’t agree with each other? War is devastating to countries and most indefinitely to individuals and soldiers. A war can ruin families, friendships, education, economy, and the minds of innocent people. Most young men, who were just approaching manhood, were pulled of their innocence of childhood, and thrown into a world of rage and destruction. Soldiers that luckily survive a horrific war often find their lives turned completely upside down since they enlisted, and sometimes it is just impossible to forget the vicious past and start over again as a civilian. Many older men believe that wars being fought are wars of dignity and glory, but truthfully, wars are battles of death and gore. The novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque expresses dramatically the negative effects of war.
War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, written by the talented author Chris Hedges, gives us provoking thoughts that are somewhat painful to read but at the same time are quite personal confessions. Chris Hedges, a talented journalist to say the least, brings nearly 15 years of being a foreign correspondent to this book and subjectively concludes how all of his world experiences tie together. Throughout his book, he unifies themes present in all wars he experienced first hand. The most important themes I was able to draw from this book were, war skews reality, dominates culture, seduces society with its heroic attributes, distorts memory, and supports a cause, and allures us by a constant battle between death and love.
On the other hand, acting cooperatively does not only protect, but can also enrich our lives. To echo World War II veteran J. Glenn Gray, “many veterans who are honest with themselves will admit, I believe, that the experience of communal effort in battle, even under the altered conditions of modern war, has been a high point in their lives” feeling “earnest and gay at such moments […] liberated from [their] individual impotence and […] drunk with the power that union with [their] fellows brings” (44;45). Perhaps the attractiveness of community and cooperation stems from its central role in our survival. However, it also facilitates acting in a manner that reflects positive moral principles. Gray proceeds to describe that there exists a “willingness
Many people across the world are affected every day by the gift of music. To those of us who let it into our lives, we truly view it for what it is. Unfortunately, not everyone realizes how powerful it can be. For me singing was something that I was always good at; I never really took it to heart. I never understood when people would talk about how music had changed there lives; I just didn't see how a few notes put together could affect anyone so deeply. It wasn't until last April when our choir was chosen among a select few to perform at Carnegie Hall that I would understand the indubitable impact of music.
War has always been something to be dreaded by people since nothing good comes from it. War affects people of all ages, cultures, races and religion. It brings change, destruction and death and these affect people to great extents. “Every day as a result of war and conflict thousands of civilians are killed, and more than half of these victims are children” (Graca & Salgado, 81). War is hard on each and every affected person, but the most affected are the children.
War is the worst thing in the world because it ruins people’s life. One example is from the text “Armed & Underage” by Jeffrey Gettleman it says, “Their growth has been stunted by conflict-induced famines, their psyches damaged by all the killings they have witnessed. ‘What do I enjoy?’ Awil asks. ‘I enjoy the gun.’” This is actually saying how a young boy’s young life was
"I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how people are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another. I see that the keenest brains of the world invent weapons and words to make it yet more refined and enduring. And all men of my age, here and over there, throughout the whole world see these things. All my generation is experiencing these things with me..."
Viewing others’ groups as collective makes people feel more connected to their own group, just as in the book The Myth of Individualism by Peter Callero when the scout troops formed solidarity with one another. However, this “us” and “them” mentality also creates a volatile animosity. In a camp setting, the boy scouts began to fight with one another outside of designated games. In a world setting, we achieve what we have in the United States today between the Anglo-Saxon/Christian majorities versus the minority groups of Islamics. Alternatively, we achieve similar polarity between Christian Germans and Jewish Germans before Hitler’s rise to power, and start America on the path to genocide on its
Veteran’s Day, November 11, is a nationally celebrated holiday for obvious reasons. It is celebrated to thank all veterans that have served the United States in previous and current wars to keep the country safe. Though the topics of war and violence are usually grouped together, it has been shown that war can stand alone without violence, and violence can stand alone without war. Each of these topics have been widely discussed, such as in Tobias Wolff’s short story “Hunters in the Snow,” Stephen Crane’s poem ”War is Kind,” and in Mel Gibson’s recent war drama, Hacksaw Ridge.
Given the countless advances we’ve collectively achieved as a nation throughout the past few decades, it’s nothing short of a miracle that the conflict we’ve experienced has been relatively tame, at least in comparison to previous, larger-scale disputes. Nevertheless, war seems to be an unfortunately integral part of humanity’s capability, and despite the comparative peace that has been established and sustained in the U.S., the natural ebb and flow of our world manages to miss a beat on occasion. The spoke of history’s turntable violently fell out of harmony on a fateful September 11th almost fifteen years ago. People that were old enough to fully comprehend the significance of the situation can still bring
World War I, an event which changed the geopolitical makeup as well as the attitudes of the world, consisted of people killing other people. In fact, every war is made up of people. In the day to day lives of civilians today, whether watching the news or reading a history book, the personal aspect of wars, particularly, is lost to many people. The notion that every soldier is a human being with likes, dislikes, talents, families, and favorite foods would certainly be acknowledged on a multiple-choice test, but practically it seems to be forgotten. Books like An American Soldier in World War I¸ however, help ground the massive geopolitical turmoil involved in a war like the Great War in the reality of humanity. The book’s goal is to look at
I wake up in the backyard laying in the grass of my house with the biggest headache. Then I see my mom running of the house shocked at me. " Jean what do you think your doing out here?!" my mom shouts at me. She helps me up to get ready for school. "I have no idea" i said holding my head, I was really dizzy. " Just because you are outside in the morning does not mean you don't have to go to school" she said shaking her head and opening the glass sliding back door. "even if you were acting weird yesterday" she said setting me down on the kitchen table chair. " how was i acting yesterday?" i asked her, i cant remember anything that happened. All i can remember is going to bed feeling really sick but yesterday nothing. "you can't remember?" she asked me with an angry tone. "no" i said worrying about if i should answer her. "you know what i don't have time for this go get ready for school, we need to leave soon" she said rolling her eyes and walking into the kitchen to make breakfast. I walk upstairs trying to remember what happened. i looked down at my clothes and i was wearing black ripped jeans, a a gray t-shirt with rolled up sleeves, black and white vans on. i got a flash back of yesterday morning. I woke up in my bed with everything floating. I got my clothes from my closet just by thinking that my clothes and just set themselves on my bed. My flashback ends. when my mind sets back in the present i was in my room on the bed sitting. i picked out my clothes for school. which was a pink and black hoodie with some light blue jeans and boots. when i looked in the mirror i had grass in my orange/brownish hair and dirt. my brown eyes were red around them from not having much sleep. i had some mud on my face. I'm trying to guess wh...