In the dense hot jungles of vietnam thousands of Americans took their last breath and disappeared into history. Most of them paid the full price of war but will forever be known as just a tally on a number of losses in a dark gruesome war. Brothers, fathers, uncles died everyday to protect the citizens of South Vietnam from the brutal North Vietnamese. Like all wars there's no easy way out; blood will always be shed and family chains will forever be broken. Vietnam was a terrible but necessary war. When the Vietnam soldiers returned, they were treated badly by their fellow citizens, by people who protested the war calling them child killers and monsters. It was not the soldier’s fault that their government drafted them into war. The real monsters…
I was asked to talk about the 50-year anniversary of the Vietnam war. And as most of you can probably tell, I wasn’t alive 50 years ago, so I went to my grandfather who fought in that war and I asked him to recount his experience. I asked him if he lost any friends during that time. He responded with “Hunny, all the guys you are with are your friends. And it hurts to lose any of them.” He recalled for me one individual. Greg. He said “losing that one was hard.” He told me he was a good man who found a Vietnamese child that he wanted to take back to the states with him. My grandfather said that man was later killed in action and the child, lost track of. Ladies and gentlemen. 58, 220 American soldiers died in that war. To some, these numbers aren’t more than graphs, statistics, or numbers on a chart. But to the brave soldiers who fought, each number is a face, a name, a story or a memory. Every number, every digit matters. Let us not forget the 2.5 million soldiers who fought for us. Who fought against communism, against an ideal they felt to be…
It is always easier to say how you would respond to war while looking upon it as an outsider who has seen little outside of movies and pictures. We tell ourselves "I could never imagine doing that", or "How could any human be so corrupt?" That is what we say, but I wonder what those same men said just prior to their war time experience. Surely they would not follow the same path that so many before them had, choosing to allow war to consume them from the very destructive nature of its existence. In the novel "All Quiet On The Western Front" by Erich Remarque, the author conveys the message of how war can corrupt how people view, respect, and handle authority. Through his writing, he has helped to enlighten the world as to how exactly war can change our views on authority that we once stood firm on. No matter who you are, war can find a way to work into your character, at least in some slight way.…
The idea of war brings up many questions about life and death, suffering, and consequences. While many people may see war as something that affects people as a whole, such as nations or a persecuted group, war further impacts every individual, whether or not they are directly involved. War limits freedoms and individualism, and in most cases people find themselves with less rights than during peacetime. People base their choices not on what they feel, and more on what they have to do to survive. Soldiers and civilians alike are influenced by war in different ways, however, these tie together when the overall effects of war are examined.…
War has always been something that seemed pointless to me; it seemed like violence with no other purpose but to harm people. I felt sorry for the people who had to go to war, for the people who died, and for people who could never go back to normal after a war ended, because of the mental or physical impact it had on them. Howard told us his story, his opinion about war, and the book “The Things they carried”. He changed my way of looking at war a lot, partly even my opinion about war.…
War is hell, but that’s not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead.” (Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried)…
War is a very controversial topic for many people. Depending on the person’s outlook on the war, it can be depicted as something good or bad. War brings destruction wherever it goes, whether it is on a place or the people, and it ultimately is inevitable. War also protects a country from having further destruction and keeps the people at home safe from any danger. As a person can see in many recordings of war, there are many comparisons and contrasts that are expressed through soldiers, veterans, and civilians. Some comparisons seen in many of the testimonies given by effected people are dehumanization, dislocation, and alienation; but they also have contrasts that can be seen through nationalism, technological advancements, and the coming home for many…
In the end, war is crucial and hard for many. No two people are alike when it comes to the effects of war. Some have horrible flashbacks imprinted on their minds that only very few can see through. In addition, others have physical wounds that everyone…
Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” War creates many experiences that continues to play an evident role in many soldiers lives. One particular soldier, Mike Clark, globally shares his story of being a Vietnam veteran, and the difficult times that he underwent during the Vietnam War. Clark’s personal story is unique because of the difficult decisions he makes and the factors that cause him to make them. Clark explains the reality behind joining the military and witnessing the tragedies that are experienced during the war. While exploring Mike Clark’s Vietnam War story and remembering the war veterans, it is important to consider…
From a very young age, being largely raised by my depression era paternal grandparents, I was exposed to the concepts of community, volunteer work, charity, and an attractive view of a future in public service and a life in the military. My grandfather, a World War II sailor of the Pacific theater, would often tell me of his glory days during the war. My good fortune provided me with his sharing a lifetime of wisdom. Wisdom such as what beauty the world has to offer, the curious and wonderful cultures of the earth, the horrors of war, the good and evil within man, the happiness and sadness from friends made and lost. Most importantly though, he told me of the sickness of ignorance, and that the cure was something only a good education, hard work, and an open heart could…
The history of war is what many spend time reading about in textbooks. Few, however, experience war and all that it encompasses. David Leckie, a marine during World War II, uses his book, Helmet for My Pillow, to share with readers the truth of what it was like to be a soldier. Rather than skimming the surface of his time on Parris Island and the Pacific Islands, he goes into unmatched, excruciating detail; every trench dug, every shot fired, and every fallen soldier passed was recounted by Leckie. Setting this story apart from any other, the first-hand accounts of combat, unlikely descriptions of the day-to-day actions of the soldiers, and the heart that Leckie intertwines with each part of his story all combine to make this thought-provoking,…
I’ve lived a long life, and along the way I’ve made choices that I’ll never forgive myself for, and I don’t expect anyone to forgive me for them either. Some of the most powerful choices I’ve made happened when I was in the war. Where the jungles had such humid air that it was as though I was breathing in buckets of water, where danger lurked behind every tree in any form imaginable, and where the closest bonds of brotherhood were created. But as I look back on my time in the war, there has to be at least some decision I had made that did some good. Maybe if my choices did any good for the people in my squad or the civilians that we were trying to aide, but that could just be my mind glorifying those moments in order to protect myself from the pain and destruction they caused instead. I find that fact humorous, that my mind would be trying to protect me from the horrors of my past since it has never shielded me from the painful memories of Corporal David Johnson, my best friend.…
If war is necessary, it is a necessary evil. Its evil is sometimes concealed for a time by its glamour and excitement but when war is seen in its reality, there is a little glory about it. At its best, it is hideous calamity. It brings in awful loss of life. In recent great wars, millions of men, women and children were killed, many died of diseases, famines and untold sufferings. A war generally sweeps away the strongest and best men of a country and leaves the aged, the weak and the unfit to carry on the race. Then there are related sorrows and sufferings it causes to those whom it does not kills – the widows, the orphans and mothers rendered children’s.…
War is what changed me and for this I am glad butat the same time I am upset about how much it drained me mentally…
One day, after we moved back to Baghdad, I was on my way home from school when I saw a disgusting, shocking scene. It was a corpse of what seemed to be a teenager. Someone had killed him and thrown him in the dump. This wasn’t the only jolting memory that I have from my life in Iraq. I remember being at home in extremely hot weather, and the city didn’t have any electricity. When I saw someone get killed or about to get kidnapped and I couldn’t help him/her because I might get killed. When the enemy soldiers entered our house in the night without permission to search for weapons and I couldn’t stop them, or when I saw someone crying having lost their child, and I didn’t know what to say to assist them. It is all so realistic, and it is still happening now.…