I gave up looking for all of my comments that I have made in the past. There are more then these 10 out there, I just don’t know where exactly. I believe that all of these are still awaiting moderation the last time I checked, so I apologize if they don’t show up.
Cheers!
“But nothing happens. I just scan. And think. And think. And think. Too much time to think.”*
What is happening to our war, our culture clash, and our gung-ho Americana kick-ass attitude?? Where are the headlines? Where are the victories, where are the defeats? Hell, where are the battles?
Battles are not suicide bombers blowing the crap out of pedestrian places. Battles are not roadside bombs exploding on 1 out of every 15 hummers that passes by. Battles are not soldiers sitting in guard towers with nothing to do except pray that nothing bad happens to them.
The major difference I see between the books of war we have been reading and the war right now, is that there is no war! Why does it seem that all of the books, The Things We Carried, Fallen Angels, Vera Britain, they all are moving for an accomplishment of something. They have protagonists and antagonists, they know who the enemy is, there is a PURPOSE even if it is wrong, and they still know what they are there to do.
So what are we in Iraq for? “To liberate a nation from the tyranny of a dictator, and promote freedom and democracy around the world.” Come on! There are sooo many horrible dictators around the world, why did we choose Iraq? What are our boys dying everyday over there for?
ASSUMING that this war will be over in 10 years, and so far that’s a hefty assumption to make, what books will be written about the Iraq war? What will future generations say about our military operations? We have books about World War II, which was the allied forces against the Nazi’s. We have books about Vietnam, which was a huge American tragedy where far too many young soldiers died. What will our story be? Will we have an Iraq War memorial in Washington D.C.? Will this be the forgotten war, the war that no one wants to talk about? How will this war be remembered?
Perhaps another question will be, how should this war be reflected upon? Do we take all of the soldier’s blogs we have been reading and compile them into one giant database? Do we make movies based on the stories, or are we going to have thousands of books written about the Iraq war?
This is my final post, so it’s mostly an analysis of everything I have read and written about. The symbolism, the heroisms, the death and destruction, somehow, it all seems so familiar. The human race will inevitably find itself in conflict with itself, and people will express themselves through literature, film, and other mediums. I can only hope we learn from the past, instead of repeating it.
***I have to send a shout out to The Usual Suspect. You keep it real, you tell it like it is, and I have the utmost respect for you. I greatly enjoyed reading your posts, and will continue to do so. Stay safe Suspect…
Written April 6th
Oh, the things we take for granted here in America. Or any other place that’s not a war zone.
I was just chilling out outside, its beautiful weather, a tad chilly, and decide its time to take my little Civic out for a drive. I pull out onto Lake Michigan drive and decide to head West, away from the city. Everyone is driving really nicely, letting me pass them in a lazy sort of way, and even one of them decided to race me on a long stretch of open road. I laughed as I beat him, and decided it was time to turn around and head home, this time, driving a bit more slowly. 10 minutes and 2 fire trucks later, I was home.
“A ridiculous traffic jam gums up the works, and we’re having none of it. Can’t let these crazy revolutionaries, extremists, and commuters get too close. Standard procedure, stay the fuck away. I’m on the 240 (that beautiful belt fed fully automatic bastard of all bastards), so my friend takes advantage of the situation and sticks his rifle out the back.”*
I can’t even imagine being in a war zone. These kids (no offense Suspect, but you are still in your 20’s) are dropped off in the middle of a foreign country and are expected to know the rules and regulations about everything. Not only that, but they are fighting, so everyone could be a possible enemy.
When I am on the road, I consider myself courteous to others. I don’t tailgate, I let people merge, and I generally take things nice and easy. I expect people to do the same for me, and if they don’t I consider they very very rude and usually have some not so courteous things to say about them under my breath.
“You drive, completely cognizant of the fact that you are driving in IED Central, and looking this way and that for anything suspicious. Intel, for instance, tells us to look out for a Toyota Corolla in black, white, red, blue…. Heck that is about EVERY car out there! They also say to look for particular trucks… SUV’s… and even an Afghan National Army vehicle that was stolen…. Ugh! So you get the picture, you basically can’t trust ANY vehicle out there because they are potential VBIED’s. Then you’ve got to navigate through a city that has no traffic laws, with people crossing the street everywhere … we have only one rule to driving here in Afghanistan: “Drive it like you stole it”, and TRY not to hurt anyone in the process. Ha! …. For instance, we don’t stop at most stop signs… we drive WAY faster than the rest of traffic, weaving in and out of lanes, nearly missing the corner of every vehicle we pass. We honk like we own the road, we have to swerve into oncoming one-way traffic to get around a slow vehicle that could make us vulnerable to attack; we’ve played “chicken” with oncoming cars, trucks, busses, and large jingle trucks more times that I can count. We’re not exactly winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people here with our highway habits!”**
Now I am not and expert on people, and I don’t pretend to be, but doesn’t that kind of inconsiderateness piss everyone off? I understand that our soldiers have to watch out for everyone, and be on the lookout, but does that mean that they can be rude to everyone in their host country?
If I lived in Afghanistan, and I saw a huge American truck barreling down at me, I would automatically not like them, and think they were a bunch of stuck-up jerks that didn’t belong in my country.
We watched a movie in class a couple weeks ago, called “Born on the Fourth of July”, about a kid who goes to Vietnam, and has to cope with what happened after he returns home. The main scene in the movie that sticks out in my mind is when they shoot up an entire village of innocent civilians, thinking that there were hidden Vietcong hiding in the houses. I keep trying to put myself in the shoes of someone from that country hearing about the news of that happening. That would infuriate me, even though I know they are supposedly helping, mistakes like that shouldn’t happen!.
That’s an extreme example, and I am just trying to get my point across. Perhaps we need to focus on the little things to make the countries we are supposed to be “helping” appreciate us a little more. Whether that be driving more considerately, doing more missions to bring fresh water and medical supplies to the outlying villages, or even just being friendly to as many locals as you can be without letting your guard down.
Maybe its not possible in a time of war, but I think it might be worth an effort. Who knows, perhaps more cooperation would come from it.
I’m just spitballin’ here………
Written April 1st.
I’ve come to realize more and more that what I write about in this blog actually usually stems from my childhood, and how I glorified war. Does any one else remember running through their backyard with a bunch of friends; toy pistols (or twigs shaped like guns, whatever you had handy) at the ready, and your stealth shoes on, getting ready to kick some bad guy butt? I remember how good it felt to pretend like I was shooting some evil guy, and rescuing the world and all the pretty ladies from whatever death machine or evil mastermind happened to be attacking that day.
This fascination with war only grew after watching movies where the good guys always win, the bad guys always lose, and there is ALWAYS a happy ending. Lets see, how about Star Wars? I know its science fiction, but its still war nonetheless, and at that impressionable age, that meant a lot. Now what about the Rambo movies? I’m talking about the early ones, the ones I watched without telling my parents. Where he walks into a place with guns blazing and looks like the coolest person ever! Oh, and he never gets shot anywhere vital and always wins.
The YA book that we have to read for class next week is called Fallen Angels, by Walter Dean Myers. In that book is a character named Lobel. Lobel is Jewish, and throughout the book gets quite a bit of harassment from that. From what I can tell is possibly homosexual, and is basically downright scared. Lobel is obsessed with movies, and is always talking about them.
Lobel escapes from the world and reality in which he lives, and pretends everything’s a movie. He tries to convince Richie that movies are the only real thing in life. Every time Lobel goes out on patrol, he becomes Lee Marvin, the hero, and the guy who can’t be killed, because then the movie will be over.
*whew* Talk about not confronting reality. Lobel tries to explain to Richie that he should not play the part of the good black guy, because everyone will think he is a coward and at the end he will die saving everybody.
When I read this part, I actually laughed. Lobel decided that the world they were living in needed to become a musical, because nobody good ever dies in a musical. This seemed ridiculous to me, a little outlandish even. Who goes to war and pretends that they are someone else, believing they won’t be killed if they play a part like a movie?
Isn’t that exactly what I did when I was a kid? Didn’t I always choose the part of the guy who never died? Lobel is taking his fear and transforming it in the only way he knows how.
Suddenly I wasn’t laughing anymore. What else can you do??? What would I do? There are millions upon millions of soldiers around the globe, not just ours, but every countries soldiers. People who have fear, and need to escape from it.
If I ever get drafted, I’m gonna be like Lobel. Except, I think I want to play the part of Jack Conrad, from the movie “The Condemned”. He was so cool, plus, he didn’t die….
So how long do soldiers have to wait before they get a little R and R? To me, it seems like it would help moral so much more if they would let the soldiers get out and live a little.
Now I know some of the barracks are basically like a gated community, with workout facilities and video games and Internet cafes, but really, they are still stuck in the middle of a war with physical, psychological, and emotional strains at all times, even when they sleep.
I was reading Since You Went Away, a book of World War II letters from American women to their husbands/lovers/fiancées, and I took me a couple hours to figure out that they only got to see their significant other twice or three times in the matter of two or three years, sometimes more. Wouldn’t that make things very very difficult?
Hell, I’ve been in relationships where I only got to see the girl once a week, and that was stressful enough. So I wondered, is it the same thing today? Do they only exchange letters and e-mails, have a couple videoconferences, and maybe one weekend to go somewhere not filled with war and stress?
I go to my trustworthy, typical American soldier, the Usual Suspect. (Suspect, in case you are reading this, I am being sarcastic. You are the shit, and far from ordinary.) But seriously, I truly wonder how many times they can escape the world they live in, and not only in dealing with relationships.
In all of the letters in Since You Went Away the letters all have a reoccurring theme of struggling with the fact that the soldier is actually gone, and will not be coming home anytime soon. It’s a shame we don’t have the soldiers letters to read, because then I could understand if they get more of a break.
Suspect just recently went to Tokyo, and from what I can tell by this entries, had a damn good time. This paragraph in an entry called “Insomnia”, really grabbed my attention when glazing over his articles:
The realization that this is all temporary, it haunts me once in a while. I want to hold on to this as long as I can. We’ve got a clean slate, even if it’s a different color than everyone else’s proverbial slate. We’re finding something out, but we don’t know what. This isn’t just R&R from Iraq, its R&R from my entire life. Just picking up and leaving for somewhere where I don’t know anyone, I’ve probably needed this for years.*
How can a soldier truly enjoy themselves when they know they are not going to have something like this for a couple of years again? The way the mind toys with you would be almost too much to handle.
Suspect later talks about how he wanted to not get back on the plane to return to Iraq, how he would find a job and settle down and just blend in. He says the only thing that held him back was knowing all of his friends were still doing their duty, and he will be damned if he didn’t finish it out with them.
So what is the connection I am trying to make? Even though our technology has progressed SO MUCH, can we still not even allow our men and women overseas to at least get a little break from the world they live in? I think that it may boost moral on the end of the troops, and it may make the people on the home front rest a little easier if they get to see their husbands/mothers/children/significant others more frequently.
I know, it will cost a hella amount of money, and we can’t afford to let the troops go from Iraq very frequently, but I’m just saying. I know the women who wrote the letters back in World War II would have appreciated it. I KNOW people now would appreciate it.
Maybe it’s time to give something back to troops, and let them come home to visit family, if maybe just for a little while. Do it in increments or something, I don’t know. It just seems like the right thing to do. But maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about and am crazy. It seems like a good plan to me…
Written 21 March 2008
I feel sick. Not like the 24-hour flu sick, or even the ‘I have to write 6 entries for my blog by next week’ sick.
This is the type of sick you feel when you get so angry you could scream, or the nasty feeling in the pit of your stomach when you know something is terribly wrong and you just want it to go away.
Now I guess that I should give a little warning. Do not click on the link above if you are easily disturbed by raw war footage, and I would also not recommend it for those who have family or friends serving in the military.
For those of you who didn’t click the link, I will give a little background. In our last class, Professor Rozema passed out a handout that talked about the freedom that soldiers have while blogging, and the relevance the Internet has to the war in Iraq. In that article, it briefly mentioned this website, and it says that it takes a daily assessment on attacks on allied forces and it encourages others to follow in the path of Holy War, or Jihad.
Being the curious scoundrel that I am, I decided that I wanted to check it out, see what it was. I expected it to be a website that looked like it was made in a high school computer class with a couple of creepy pictures and perhaps a video or two of people shooting some rockets. Man was I wrong…
The first thing that caught my eye was the running ticker on the top of the page. It took me a minute to figure out what it was saying, because it sort of reminded me of the stock market scroll on the bottom of MSNBC. The ticker was counting off the latest American casualties, and the latest bombings of hummers and other assorted military vehicles. There were advertisements for someone called the “Baghdad Sniper”, who apparently ‘never misses’, and entire sections dedicated to military operations and filmed military operations. They have media releases, political statements, and even a “Contact Us” option.
So by now, I am outraged. How could they do this????? How could they show American men and women who try so damn hard just to do their job getting shot, blown up, and burned to death? And to top it off, they celebrate it, and post it on the Internet for everyone to see….
I pause, and quickly flip open a new tab and go to Youtube.
My anger turns to disgust as I witness American soldiers videotape themselves killing Iraqi insurgents who are wounded. American allied soldiers, who represent freedom for all and international peace and unity. The same America who gets pissed off when a video of Iraqi’s burning a dead American soldiers body surfaces on the Internet.
I know I am most likely not supposed to be writing about this, I should be analyzing literature and how it relates to war today, but this is too important to me to let pass by. I don’t want to say we are bringing this upon ourselves, because two wrongs don’t make a right, but what kind of an example are we setting for the Iraqi people? Can’t they get the Internet too? It isn’t called the WORLDWIDE WEB for nothing…
I think maybe we need to take a look in the mirror before we start policing the web for bad things that others do to us. It is an utter shame to see what a state the human race has sunk to, if we exchange videos via web of one person killing another, especially when they are helpless and wounded.
If you need further convincing, just click on the links below. I can’t write about this anymore…..it’s too much….
Written 04 March 2008.
In class we discussed the different ways that we can approach writing about war. Novels, biographies, short stories, poems, almost every type of literary device in the world today can be used to bring forth the story of war and tragedy. In class, we read the graphic novel “Maus”, which brought the discussion to asking whether or not a comic can be successfully used to depict such horrific acts.
Some argued yes, and others argued no. It certainly made me think about World War II differently, and I could understand the arguments for both. It made me curious however, to see if the Iraq war now had cartoonists depicting the Iraqi insurgents as snakes, and the allied forces ferrets…. or something.
Nothing in my Google reader had anything to do with comics, so it was time to go searching the endless worldwide web. After approximately 26ish minutes of searching, I came across something interesting. TALES OF THE IRAQ WAR by LETUFF. I couldn’t help but be sucked in by the endless supply of cartoon that Letuff has to offer. However, I couldn’t help but notice right off the bat that these were all anti-war cartoons. Some are very powerful. Here is are a couple samples of some that he put out for the 5th year anniversary of the war:
Now as moving and thought provoking as most of the 252 free cartoons he has are, this wasn’t quite what I really was looking for. This cartoonist does not relate quite to “Maus”, but it did offer a unique perspective on another anti-war effort, trying to get his message heard from the world.
I went back to my searching through Google, and I stumbled across another comic writer. This one, however, detailed more of a story line and less of a political statement. This comic was written by Joe Sacco, who is a very famous comic book writer. Sacco traveled to Iraq for a short period of time and wrote a comic about his time with the troops. He calls it “Complacency Kills”, and I thought it was a very good representation of our troops, and some of the struggles they have in a day to day living. He depicts the Marines as very trim and athletic, quite the contradiction to Letuff’s comics.
Some would argue with against this type of medium being used to tackle the monster of depicting war and tragedies, saying it trivializes the sacrifice people have made by making them ‘inhuman’, but I believe it has its benefits. Growing up in a society where the babysitter can be replaced with a television says a lot about our culture, so perhaps the only way we can educate some children and adults in the future is through graphic novels.
Read “Maus”, and “Complacency Kills”, and make your own decision about how best broach the topic of war and sacrifice. I think they both do a damn good job.
“Complacency Kills”, by Joe Sacco
TALES OF THE IRAQ WAR by LETUFF
Maybe Rupert Brooke was right all along.
I was reading through my feeds and as always, I stopped to see if Suspect had written anything interesting of late. I glanced down his column like always, and stopped. For the first time in my life, it hit me.
We, since we have been young, have been shown that war is bad, and war is dirty, and war is evil. It is pounded into our minds through movies and videogames. I remember the first time I ever played Call Of Duty. I remember watching Enemy at the Gates. I remember seeing pictures of Vietnam soldiers who are covered in muck and grime and are dripping from sweat. I remember watching Hotel Rwanda, where blood is everywhere and the scariest thing of all is that you’re still alive. That is the war I know, that is the war I have always known.
I stared in awe out the back, like a complete tool, as we passed clusters of houses and road and open nothingness and palm groves. Then a village panned behind us, every light like a glowing emerald. I closed the eye that looks through my NODs. Lame. I opened my nightvision eye again. Groovy. *
Suspect has stumbled upon something that no one gets to see but him. It is a glimpse of the beauty of war. The breathtaking views from planes, the twilight from another hemisphere, the sand blowing off the tops of dunes, the setting sun in the middle of a jungle, the morning rain glistening the trees…. this is the world we live in. Have we forgotten that no matter what we do or where we are, beauty still exists in the world?
Maybe Rupert Brooke was trying to just bring this across. Perhaps that he was just telling us to calm down and see things for the way they are, not just the brutality of war. Yes, we all need a dose of reality now and then to keep us in line with what is really going on, but maybe all need to see more things like the Suspect has seen.
I just watched the movie Rescue Dawn. For those of you who have not seen it, it is about a Vietnam pilot who is shot down and must survive in a POW camp. For the opening 2 minutes, it shows one of the most beautiful scenes that I wish I could have witnessed. Go to Youtube on this link and watch it. I am positive you will be blown away as I was by the sheer tranquility and beauty of the violence.
Now don’t get me wrong here. I am not pro-war, I am not saying violence is beautiful and we should do it all the time. I am saying we should invade countries just so we can look at their scenery.
What I’m saying is perhaps we need to be more appreciative of what we do see. Why don’t we take a break from our diet of reality, and indulge a little on the beauty of the world, even if that means taking something we have been instructed since we were little as wrong like war, and see something good out of it.
Or maybe I’m being too sentimental and wishy-washy like Rupert Brooke. I think I’m starting to like him…
How much does music affect our lives? Anywhere one goes its possible to be assaulted every step of the way. iPods, cell phones, CD’s, the list is endless. If you are one of the unfortunate (or fortunate) ones to not plug your ears with Seashell radio’s (Fahrenheit 451 anyone?), every store, mall, restaurant, or house has it blasting from surround sound speakers.
This entry actually stems from a portion of the last discussion in class, where we watched two military advertisements, one of the Marines and one of the Army. In class, the main object of discussion was the language and wording in the clips. Now language is well and good and very powerful, but I must say, the two things that make our generation tick more than anything, are music and images.
Now as far as images go, we all know what to expect from a military ad. Ripped, attractive guys push themselves through ridiculous looking obstacle courses with ease, tanks blow though underbrush and sand with disregard, and Special Forces rise out of the wilderness with their automatic machine guns and their faces painted like its Halloween, looking to kill the first unlucky terrorist they see. And to top it off, they all get a smart looking uniform and a bright silver medal to prove their masculinity and fearlessness to others, to show their significant other that they have become a man. Oh, excuse me. The one token female they showed was successful too.
The words that flash across the screen are monotonous repetitions of strength, courage, and honor, telling me that I will always be a scared little boy unless I join an organized killing machine in order to be at peace with myself and reclaim my manhood. Now that’s a lot to take in visually. It’s almost enough to make me quit my sissy job to join the Navy. But they have a special surprise waiting for you when you sit down in front of the television to see their 30-second ad. The music.
The music adds a completely different element to the scenario. If you don’t believe me, stop reading this, go to YouTube, and search for “Awesome US ARMY Recruiting Commercial”. The swelling orchestra instills a sense of pride and commitment that no amount of images or words could ever do. It fills every sense of your being and makes you believe you can be a part of something great.
Rupert Brooke wrote poems about England during WWI, and many young men read these poems and enlisted in the army because of them. He was one of the world’s first recruitment advertisers. This poem is entitled “The Soldier”:
“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 conceal’d;
A dust whom 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
Gives 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”.*
Now imagine this poem with the London Symphony Orchestra playing a riveting piece that is so moving and inspiring that even the most wimpiest of men cannot deny the urge to waddle to the nearest recruiting tent and sign up for the infantry division for England’s front lines. Seriously though, think about how much more powerful these words would have become with a touch of music to guide their way. The words are almost music enough, the way the iambic pentameter rolls off your tongue, and how the rhyme scheme is just perfect.
Coming back to present day, I wonder what would happen if the Army tried different music behind their ads. I was just watching the trailer for the new Rambo movie, and Stallone is pictured butchering hundreds of greasy Asian fellows with huge turret guns, blowing up their huts, and shooting a guy with a bow and arrow so hard he flies backwards into the rain and mud. For the entire trailer, the song that played was “Let The Bodies Hit The Floor”. Now for those of you who don’t know this song, it’s a hardcore metal song by Drowning Pool that just makes you shiver if you hear it. As much as I hate to admit it, that trailer made me want to go out and kick the shit out of someone, and I didn’t care who it was or if I got caught doing it. No one could stop me! I’ve got a badass theme song playing behind me!
In a post by The Usual Suspect, one of the military blogs I am reading, Suspect comments on the music of war. The entire blog, fittingly called “The Rock”, is dedicated to the worshiping of metal over other forms of music. He thinks it should be the only music listened too by any infantryman.
“Metal that reaches through the speakers and whips your pansy ass into a puddle of goo, attacks you with sheer masculine animosity, and melts the face off of your bitch-ass friends, especially the hip-hop enthusiast types.”**
This is an essential part of the Suspect’s world. Metal music has become his theme song in Iraq. When he wakes, when he patrols, when he eats, when he sleeps, hardcore metal is his life.
So I wonder what the turnout rate of young American males to sign up for the Army would be, if, at the end of the Rambo trailer it said this:
“Sign up for the Army, and you will look this cool, be this awesome, and be unquestionably invincible. Period.”
Then it flashes its “Army Strong” tagline and the screen goes black.
The Usual Suspect would be proud of the music choice…
What does that say about our culture? Are we that riveted by pictures of masculinity and destruction, and that motivated by intense songs and powerful language? Can we be so manipulated by advertisements that we sign onto a cause we don’t even check to see if we believe in? It happened during WWI. We still do now.
Hell, I’d join to become like Rambo. Wouldn’t you?
* “The Soldier” by Rupert Brooke
** “The Rock” by The Usual Suspect
So I’m new to this whole blogging thing. I actually am slightly uncomfortable writing online for the entire world to access and judge my simple analysis of novels and how they relate to the world today.
Wait…
Who am I kidding? The only people who will read this are the people that have too. And maybe my mother. Ha.
To continue with the whole reason I am writing this entry. My feeds. I started out with the mainstream news sources; the BBC, CNN, and New York Times. The BBC because they provide an alternative to American news sources, CNN for their political ticker, and the New York Times for their headlines.
I also subscribed to the Milblog “Iraq: The Purgatorium”. I must say, it is an enthralling blog to read about a soldier in Iraq. Even if you don’t have to read it, it is defiantly worth a couple seconds of your time. Another blog I am reading is called “Third Times A Charm” from a soldier in Afghanistan, and another of “The Satirist at War” who is also in Afghanistan. I subscribed as well to the Army pod cast as well as a video pod cast from the Marines. I am still looking for independent pod casts of soldiers overseas, but so far have had no luck finding any.
I think that’s about it for today. Have a wonderful morning, mid-afternoon, and evening.
Cheers!
