Sunday, November 20, 2011
Ghost of war third post
Each part seems to focus on a different subject this part being camaraderie between fellow soldiers as well as the things that the soldiers need to survive. While they don't necessarily need some of the things that people send to them, they all appreciate it. in the book an elementary school sends letters and basic wants. Simthson notes that they can go to any storage facility on base and get a bar of soap and any other toiletries he needs but the soap sent by the kid is appreciated. He also mentioned in this chapter how soldiers get used to the bombings and the explosions so much that they almost stop hearing all the wooshes and pops of the mortars that fly over their heads. While he walks to dinner a mortar flies over his head and lands on the base about 600 feet away from him and he just walks to dinner; his motto being at this point "I cannot control a mortar and stop it from blowing up right on top of me, but I can control when I run" He does not run he continues walking until another mortar hits a lot closer to his position. Is it wrong for someone to get so used to war and violence and also not care about their own well being enough to walk when they should be running?
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In response to the first part of your post, I think that it is not necessarily the actual objects that they receive that help soldiers through their time away but rather the support from back home. There is only so much that regular people across the world can do to physically help the soldiers. I think that what the soldiers find most valuable is the thought that is apparent in any small gesture. What you wrote about being so used to war to not even notice or seem to care really struck me. It is so sad that anyone should have to become so numb by war that they essentially have to disregard it in order to get by. I don't think that they necessarily stop caring about their well-being, but rather that they are so warn out from the repercussions of war that they have experienced, that they don't have the ability to worry about every tragedy that could strike. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteIt is not the object that was sent, as he said in the book he can go to any storage and distribution center to get soap, but it is the soap from the kid that he is appreciates because it is from a random kid that thought about putting something into the package with the letter that would make his life a little better than it is. It is the kid whom he appreciates not the soap. The book also used the words, used to war and bombings. what i believe that what he meant was not that they did not care, because they did care, but that they were so accustom to the bombings happening that it sort of came to a point where they all realize that they cannot control what the other side does. They can try to stop them from doing it, but once the mortar is in the air, it's going to land wherever it is going to land and there is no point in them trying to control every aspect of their lives. They want to live, but had that mortar hit 2 feet behind him instead of 600 feet then who would be left to worry or care about the mortar. So in this chapter of the book when he is fleeing from the mortars he was being a little bit arrogant, he was going to get to dinner, he was so sick of them constantly bombing the compound, and he was not going to let the enemy get in the way of him getting to dinner. eventually he ran because a mortar hitting 600 feet away is a little less something to care about than the second one that landed 100 feet away. He cared but not really paid much attention to it because the bombings became a way of life for him on his four month mission on that base, he adapted to getting used to the enemy bombing at random times of the day. I also don't know psychology so i don't really know what was truly going through his head other than what he said was going on in his head.
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