"War is hell, but war is also paradise. War encompasses all that we are, all that we were, and all that we will be. I look at war and see past the blood and guts and bullets and bombs. I see the soft things that hide inside the casings of a bullet. I see the devils inside the dust. I see the hunters being hunted. And the moon dancing on the waves, the sun dancing on the dust. I see the ghosts of war." Smithson, after suffering from night terrors every night a month since he got home, was given a chance to stop the suffering of waking up thinking that someone was out there to kill him while he was sleeping in his bed with his wife beside him. He went to college and in a creative writing class was given the prompt, write about a time when you witnessed something destroyed. He did not want to talk about the war he wanted to keep it to himself, all the things he saw, but then realized that the thing he saw destroyed in the war wasn't all of the death and towns and roads, it was himself. So he wrote a story of an ambush he was in titled "The town that Achmed Built", soldiers that come home from war have trouble talking about the things they saw, Smithson wrote this three page essay in twelve pages and could not stop writing. his teacher read it and asked of he was going to therapy to help with the things that he witnessed and Smithson responded that, that was his therapy, being able to tell his story. In American Studies class last year we heard from a man named Scheaffer (spelling may be off), the reasons he talks to people about his experiences in vietnam is because that is his therapy he wants to make sure that people knew what was happening over there much like Smithson looked at america knowing that they do not know a thing about the war unless he told them about it. "The Town that Achmed Built" is the ninth chapter in the book of mini essays that Smithson wrote for english class in his second semester of college titled "Ghosts of War."
The book not only deals with the way soldiers have to deal with what they saw in the war when they come home, but also mostly focuses on how little America actually knows about the war and what its about. Once he started fighting the war it wasn't about the weapons of mass destruction or capturing terrorists, it was about the people he saw on the sides of the roads when his convoy drove past, it was about the villages that get burned or villagers who get killed in the night by insurgents. The war became about the people in his family, not back home, but with him, his extended family in his platoon, his brothers and sisters, who were more than that to him, of whom he fought with and ran missions with. The book showed how little he actually knew about why he even went off to join the military, it wasn't for the twin towers or for revenge or safety of america, it was for the boy in the town that achmed built who gave him a stick with hair and drawings on it, the kid that told him that this stick was supposed to be a bazoona, a cat. He went to war to fight for the kid that gave him a good luck charm and taught him a few words in Arabic, a kid he did not know existed until he was in Iraq, helping his village fight off nightly attacks from people who wanted to do harm to their family. There is a beauty in war that people in america don't see, "And know I see that I am grateful for war, for the ghosts. Im grateful for the worst in humanity, because its the closest I'll ever get to understanding the best in humanity. Im grateful for my moments of insanity, because its the closest I'll ever get to being sane." "This place is beautiful. This place is war." The american news only shows the destruction and the insanity of it all. instead of pointing out the people like Ryan who drove bulldozers and filled in potholes and helped villages they'd rather focus on the soldiers who they believe kill people for no reason in a war that america should not have been involved in; they never show the beauty that Smithson saw in it five years after his tour in Iraq, and america may never see it. That is why he had to write his book and that is why Scheaffer had to tell his story when he came to American Studies.
*All quotes are taken from excerpts of the story, "Ghosts of War, the true story of a 19 year old GI" by Ryan Smithson
Interesting. I would have never thought that war is internal as much as it is external. I also like how you bring up the idea that humanity will never be understood unless the contrary is understood as well. It is kind of chilling, though, that you say, "There is a beauty in war that people in America don't see." So this book has no plot, and it's just a collection of essays?
ReplyDeleteThe book is a collection of essays that the author wrote for a creative writing class. war is a struggle of everything, the book shows (i use show because it is very descriptive) how war effects everyone internaly and externaly because even when he went home there were people who wanted to make their voices and their internal ideas of the war known to him. And its true there are parts of war when bombs are not going off and the grass is green and soldiers are having fun, this is the part of the war that america does not see because the news rather report on a operation where soldiers killed or were killed rather than spend their time at one of the few bases that did not see very much action.
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