Humanites

Truth of War Poem

Poem

Is There a Just War?

                                                                     By Skyler Dobbs             

Troy.

A famous battle of

will and undying love.

There was no offering of the famous dove,

for Troy had taken a beauty of Greece.

And that alone was justification for a 10 year siege

of black, green, and red death

that oozes out of the wounds of the

corroding statue of the founding fathers words.

Taking of beauty was justification for war then,

but we were children and now we are men.

Now we have other reasons to fight,

and we stand by those reasons all uptight.

But how justified are they in this world that is still being filled like a pitcher?

Is it possible that in the future

our justification today will be seen as just as justified as Troy’s battle?

We hold our justification on a high beautiful mantle,

but Troy held theirs on one too.

But they were new,

and in this pitcher we are two.

Is it possible that in the future we will see our justification

as stupid and ignorant as our nation

sees Troy’s justification now?

And oww!

The truth hurts.

 

War is humanities sin

guided by the dark green pit

that leaks the cold twisted lies within our mouths.

Creating the warm wet red stained footprints

that destroy the mountains we stand on. 

Fighting for beauty

only destroys the beauty

that the war is originally fought upon.

War can never truly be justified,

because there is only one side

defending itself from the people that

swing their swords with blindfolds.

Blinding them to the colors of civilization

and blinding them to the fact that they are really killing

everyone’s future.

If everyone had the idea to only fight

to protect themselves from others

there would be no war.

Only the sweet yellow gold and sparkling light

That builds our human evolution stone by stone

to the peak of civilization

would exist to better our world.

If we were no longer scared

of having to protect ourselves from

the blinded men that leave behind red stained foot prints

and have the wailing swords in their hands

there would be no war.

Only world Peace.

Sounds pretty good to me,

and this truth really does hurt.

Artist Statement

All my life I have been taught that it was ok to fight in the nature to defend ourselves but even though I agreed with this I still had an argument against it. The argument that has vexed my minded and has lead to some very interesting conversations with my dad and the argument is even if you fight to defend yourself is the war that you fought in still justified. Through the course of this year I have learned about war, and the thing that has stuck with me the most is the movie Gandhi, and what I learned about Mandela. This stuck with me because of the concept the movie and reading taught me. It taught me about how wrong war was and how these people saw to change  through non-violent ways. Watching this I found an answer to my question. My answer is no because I don’t believe that there is ever a true justification for war but if that is true how do we keep coming up with reasons for justification and why is there still war. I think that the main reason for my answer no is because of the idea that I state in my poem saying, “…War can never truly be justified, because there is only one side defending itself from the people that swing their swords with blindfolds…” This poem allowed me to ask this question and finally answer it. The reasons that we come up with justifications is because we want something and when we don’t get what we want we fight for it. The justification we come up with is clever and seen as correct. But any justification never felt right to me. My poem ended up having two different parts the first part is about how justification is seen and how in the future our justification for war will be seen as stupid and childish like how we see past wars justification now. The second part is about how the only real reason to fight in war is to protect yourself and how if everyone had that idea there would be no war. Along with these two different ideas I put in little metaphors and ideas that go along with these two different parts that are more open to interpretation.

I have my own way of writing poems for me I like to make a free verse poem that has looping ideas the flow throughout the poem to try and help me and the reader connect ideas together. Two devices I have in this poem is rhyming and metaphors/similes. I used rhyming because when I write it makes me slow down and think of stronger and more unique concepts that makes my poem stronger. For example I never had the idea of the pitcher in my poem until I had to rhyme future. With my writing I always use metaphors/similes because I always am looking for something I can compare my idea to so that other people and me can understand the idea I want to convey. For example the red stained footprints is this big metaphor of war and how it brings us farther away from civilization.

In my Exhibition I think I want to create collage picture of all these different kind of pictures and onto of them pictures that mean something to the poem. My poem will be recited my poem through a audio recording and as you listen and different parts of my poem are said it will zoom in on the picture that relates to that piece of my poem an light up. The reason I want to do this is because all year I have told my work in something that is like a story. So I decided to do something like this and that it would be an interesting way to flash images to the reader the drives home what I am trying to say.

Veteran History Project

In this project i was paired in a group of three. The third one did not show up so me and my partner Helen had to split his work. in this project me and my partner interviewed a veteran where we asked him questions in order to get a better understanding of the truth of war through the perspective of a veteran. Our interview will be going to the Library of Congress.

This interview affirmed my perspective because my veteran did not think much of killing his enemy. He just saw them as a bunch of ornery men that were trying to take his life so he was trying to take theirs first. This affirms my perspective because I said that in war people see their enemy as what they have been told and sense Hugh (my veteran) worked with tanks he never really got a chance to meet his enemy so he kept his perspective of his enemy and thought of nothing when he killed the men in front of him.

The most interesting thing I learned from my veteran is how he would sometimes go 3 to 4 days without eating. This astonishes me because he said that then they brought supplies there would be ammo men and sometimes food. At the end of the war Hugh lost 80 pounds. That’s a lot of weight and this astounds me because I would really want to be getting my men food so that they are alert ready to fight and have more energy.

                As a historian I could use this interview as an example of what normal Americans feel like when they enter the war. My veteran was drafted soon after he got married he was only supposed to be in the war for 30 days but ended up being 90 or so. The way he saw his enemy was like he was blinded to them and he came out of war because of an injury. Also in the end he was treated badly with his injury.

                I am tacking away from this project my group dynamic. Even though one of our partners didn’t show up me and my partner were able to communicate and take charge of his responsibilities. It was also am take away the fact that me and my partner were flexible and understood that we could talk to each other so that one of us doesn’t not get to much work or gets work that we don’t have the time to do.

Gulf of Tonkin in Class Writing

Even though it would make sense that North Vietnam would attack US Navy ships because of the tensions we caused, they did not attack us because the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was the lie that manipulated confusing information due to bad weather and over eager sonar men.

Vietnamese men wanted to go to war with the US. Vietnam was going through a civil war, and if the North won they would start a war with the US. Document 5 said “It is guided by North Viet-Nam and it is spurred by communist China. It’s goal is to conquer the south, to defeat American power, and to extend the Asiatic dominion of communism.” This says that North Vietnamese men are powerful and their goal is to conquer America and spread its communism to the US. This would explain why they would attack our naval ships, because essentially they wanted to start a war against the US. Plus in Document 3 LBJ admits, “There have been some covert operations in that area that we have been carrying on-blowing up some bridges and things of that kind, roads and so forth.”  Making the attack on naval ships more valid because they only needed a reason to attack US and start a war that they so desired so they can spread their communist government.

I do not believe that Vietnam attacked US naval ships because I believe that in a way the US wanted to be in a war with Vietnam so that they could stop the spread of communism and a future war that the US could not win. I believe this because McGeorge Bundy said, “To neutralize south Vietnam today, or even for the United States Government to seem to move in that direction, would mean the following: a. A rapid collapse of anti-communist forces…..” (Doc 4) This essentially means that communism would take over South Vietnam. Later on in the document he states that is South Vietnam went into communism many other states would fall to communism which is not good for the US. This makes it so that the US wants the South to win because at this point they are trying to stop the spread of communism. Making the US sight back quietly waiting for the North Vietnamese to attack. That is why they flaunted the ships in the Vietnamese faces. On August 4 1964 there was a report saying, “Review of action makes many reported contacts and torpedoes fired appear doubtful. Freak weather effects on radar and overeager sonar men may have accounted for many reports… the first boat to close the Maddox probably launched a torpedo and the Maddox which was heard but not seen.” (Doc 7). This suggests that the Gulf of Tonkin Incident never actually happened and that it was just assumptions of over eager sonar men that the US used to their advantage to start a war with Vietnam.

The Truth of War Project 

This assignment is the description of my perception of what the truth of war for a soldier.  Through a paper I wrote and a Picture book I maid. Leading up to this assignment we learned about what happened leading up to and during WW1 and WW2. We also read and annotated two books: All Quite on the Western Front, and Slaughterhouse Fiver.

During this project I have had to really us perseverance, advocacy, and refinement. I have had to really us perseverance in humanities because my grade in humanities is the lowest out of all my classes. A great example of a time I have had to persevere in class is my physical piece. My first idea was to make a cartoon strip but I knew that I could do better so I did a cartoon book instead making more refined. I persevered to make this the best project I could by making myself go through many refining steps. Like with my final draft I read it and improved whatever I saw I also used other resources like my teachers and students some times. Because  I was working so hard on refinement it required me to spend many hours trying to finish my project outside of school which I do  not have because I spend so much of my time outside of class doing football. Because of the lack of time outside of class I have to advocate for extra time.

A substantial revision I had to do during my essay is reading through my draft making sure that have correct punctuation, spelling, and I made sure I was consistent with tenses. In doing this it makes it easier and faster for the reader to read because the reader does not have to slow down and try to make sense of what I am telling the reader. Also during my proof reading I had to take sertine sentences that were lacking or did not make sense and reword them to make sense. I did this because when I read these sentences and I knew that when a reader would read this he would be confused so I re rote these sentence to the point that it flows and leaves the reader with a wow factor.

If I had another week to work on my project and essay would read through my essay and fix things that I feel need to be fixed, like throughout my paper I say that my idea is a fact when there are cases were it does not fit making it more opinion that fact. I would also fix up sertine sentences even more then I have to make them make more sense. Because I know that there is sertine aspects of my paper that are confusing to fallow.

This is the Final Product of my Work

This is my visual aspect of my writing where i take you through a book summarizing the essay i rote. Each page is a different aspect of my project.

The Truth of War for a Soldier                       

What is war? War pushes the human sanity of soldier and human boundaries in order to meet the humans’ lust and desire for power by men with the capability of getting more power. When the lust of one man pushes other men away from power they fight back. Slaughterhouse Five is a mind tickling story of Billy Pilgrims’ experiences as a soldier in Dresden during WW2 where he becomes “unstuck in time.” On his journey through time Billy experiences life in different forms in which human perception of time and life is pushed. All Quiet on the Western Front is a war story about a man named Paul. In this story Paul’s life is altered and he is on the brink of the realization of what war is. Propaganda was a huge part on WW1 and WW2. Propaganda is the use of selective information of an opinion in order to manipulate the human emotions to get a selected group of people to do and feel and think what the people selling the propaganda want. Seeing war through the eyes of the soldiers is important because the time of government manipulating its people through the use of propaganda is over. The government says we should be fighting in Iraq but do you even know why we are fighting in there anymore? The truth of war for a soldier through my perspective is that it is humanities lie to disfigure the soldier perception, and in doing so his life and sanity.

War is someone’s lie to the people it controls in order to make them do the governments bidding. Throughout the humanities lessons I have seen that the deformed perception is what drives war. Deformed perspective comes from propaganda. Through propaganda people become brainwashed. In All Quiet on the Western Front Paul’s teacher Kantotrek meets up with Paul. Incidentally Kantorek was the very person that talked Paul into the enlisting into the army. In chapter 7 Kantorek is having a physical challenge enlisting in the army. When Mittelstaedt encourage Kantorek with quotations from Kantorek when he was a school teacher and it says, “Territorial Kantorek, we have the good fortune to live in a great age, we must brace ourselves and triumph over hardship.”(174-179) Propaganda is such a strong way to get people to think what the person telling the propaganda wants. The reason propaganda works is because people trust information.  Propaganda was so strong it affected a teacher to believe that this age this war was a great time to live and that we should make the most of it, and in return this teacher taught his students what he believed about war which was that war was a good thing. Propaganda affected this school teacher’s opinion causing him to teach and his opinion in which he actually convinces some of his students to enlisting, like Paul and some of his other friends. Propaganda is not only posters and news but stories and norms that people want to live up to. Like in chapter 2 of Slaughterhouse Five Roland Weary is telling his vision of true war which he imagined telling his family and sister about this true war story about him. It went something like this:

There was a big German attack, and Weary and his antitank buddies fought like hell until everybody was killed but Weary. So it goes. And then Weary tied in with two scouts, and they became close friends immediately, and they decided to fight their way back to their own lines. They were going to travel fast. They were dammed if they’d surrender. They shook hands all around. They called themselves ‘The Three Musketeers.’ (42)

Propaganda effected Weary in a way that he saw war as a chance to make a story that people would hear and be amazed. He saw war as a chance for him to be a legacy and make meaning in his life like the Three Musketeers. But in reality war is nothing like the propaganda of The Three Musketeers.  Through propaganda leaders get what they want, soldiers with perspectives that are based on selective information or even lies the leaders have given them making the soldiers do their bidding without question.

            Soldiers are sold a perspective of how to see their enemies.  Later on in war these soldiers either become crazed with the perspective they’ve been told or they see the truth of their enemy causing them to no longer know what to do with war and in return their own lives. Many soldiers in the heart of battle do not get the chance to take the time and know the enemy. All they know is what they have been told and that their enemy is trying to kill them. Paul in All Quiet on the Western Front however got the rare chance to find out what his enemy is. In chapter 9 of All Quiet on the Western Front Paul had just killed a Russian who had jumped on top of him. Paul says later on, “Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us…..” he also says “But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship.” (223) Paul was like every soldier blind to the men he was killing.  Soldiers’ knowledge of their enemy is limited to what people have told them. Soldiers see what Paul saw in the beginning - a bayonet, a rifle, a threat. Soldiers are blind to their enemy because the people that lead them into war lie to the men they rule or lead. These leaders do this because they do not want the soldiers to see the men as people like themselves. Like on chapter 9 when Paul and his friends find pamphlets of their enemies saying that they eat Belgian children. (206) Selling perspective and lies to someone with high emotion is a strong technique. Like in Slaughterhouse Five in chapter 4 Weary convinces everyone in that is trapped in the cart with him that his death was Billy Pillgrim’s fault and he deserves to die. (78-80) Paul Lazzaro was in that cart and like the rest of the men on that cart he believed Billy Pillgrim is to blame for the death of Weary. Paul Lazzaro acquired the same perspective as Weary because he was a little messed up in the head but also because he only heard the deformed lie of Weary. Weary like other leaders told one side of the story or even a lie so that the people listening would feel and do what he wanted. Which was to kill Billy P. Acquiring perspective is so strong it can set your opinion forever, changing your life forever.

When you enter the depths of humanity’s sin which is war, it is hard for you to ever come back to the life you used to know. For example, with Paul Lazzaro, when he killed Billy Pilgrim with a high powered laser after Billy gave a speech to a capacity audience on chapter 6 of Slaughterhouse Five. (142) Paul Lazzaro’s perspective of just about everything was so skewed, but his perspective of Billy even after the war stayed the same because of the propaganda Weary implanted into Paul Lazzaro’s mind. Paul Lazzaro’s life was war because of propaganda. Propaganda is a life changing thing in which assumptions and hatred is grown and attached to a topic that surrounds you, as with Paul Lazzaro and the topic of who is to blame for the death of his friend Weary. Imagine how Europe felt towards the Germans after WW2, using Paul Lazzaro as an example of the human ­­­­behavior. They must have resented and despised the Germans. War is also life changing in the fact of trying to find a meaning to live life outside of war through the blurred mind of a soldier. For example, Paul says in chapter 7 of All Quiet on the Western Front, “I find I do not belong here anymore, it is a foreign world.” Paul entered the depths of war and then he tries to come back to the life he knew, his family. But he then realizes that after the war his life back home would never be the way it was (168). Once a man paces into the pandemonium of war he is stripped of the life he had becoming socialized around war, a soldier, and at the same time away from humanity. Soldiers are socialized away from humanity because once you enter war your mind is warped towards war. This makes your mind and the way you think no longer understandable by people that have not experienced the horror of war. When Paul comes back to war in chapter 9 Paul kills the Russian and he says, “Take twenty years of my life, comrade, and stand up-take more, for I do not know what I can even attempt to do with it now.”(223) Life for a soldier must be the most mentally challenging experience that someone can go through. Every soldier in war has killed someone like Paul did and from that their own life becomes meaningless. When a soldier kills a man but later realizes the man was fighting for the same reason as himself, the act of this soldier killing a man becomes no longer justified in the sense he originally held. Battlefield victories become pointless. He realizes the life he took is no less important than his own, and killing feels too personal, like a sin making the soldiers no longer know what to do with their lives like Paul said. When a soldier questions the meaning of their own life they’re really questioning their sanity.

Many soldiers become insane because their minds have been altered and confused to the point of seeing subjects that surround them as something that they are not. It is questionable why they can deal with life after the insanity of war. Billy Pilgrim was insane because he came out of the war mind blown so to speak. Billy no longer found meaning in life so he made up a lie to trick himself to want to live. For example in chapter 5 Rosewater says, “I think you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren’t going to want to go on living.” Billy made a lie to justify what happened in war to make meaning in his life, to make it so that he wants to go on living. For many soldiers they don’t find meaning in life, like Billy did in Slaughterhouse Five. Most soldiers are like Paul in chapter 9 of All Quiet on the Western Front they no longer know what to do with their own lives. Paul actually said this in chapter 9 after he killed the Russian, “take twenty years of my life, comrade, and stand up-take more, for I do not know what I can even attempt to do with it now.” All Paul knew and had was war like he said in chapter 4,

He is right. We are not you any longer. We don’t want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war (87-88).

Paul no longer wants to fight in war because he knows now that he is killing people with lives like his own. But yet he doesn’t what to go back home because he has been cut off from the world he once knew. He feels like he no longer can go back to the world he knew because he has been cut off, and all he believes in now is war. Paul’s sanity was breaking down and making him no longer wanted to live. This is why Paul died with a smile. War is a life changing experience in which your sanity and will to live will be tested.

War is fought by men who have been told what to do and what to believe. They later on become crazed with war or no longer find meaning in life because of the things they did in war. Glantz (2010) said that “World War II-era veterans are killing themselves at a rate that’s nearly four times higher than that of people the same age with no military service.” War completely destroys the lives of soldiers and in return the lives of the people around them. War is a lie that turns people against each other. War is the lie that drives the people who have been lied to insane. War slows down the emotional and psychological evolution of mankind.

Citation Page

-Glantz, Aaron.  “Suicide Rates Soar among WWII Vets, Records Show.”  The Bay Citizen. 11 Nov. 2010.  The Bay Citizen.  28 October 2011.  http://www.baycitizen.org/veterans/story/suicide-rates-soar-among-wwii-vets/

-Remarque, Erich M. All Quiet of the Western Front. New York: Random House, 1928.

-Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse Five. New York: Random House, 1969.