The Illusion of Truth
When you think about war, what comes to mind? Can you explain it in one word? Terrible, horrific, dehumanized, deadly, traumatic, inevitable, tragic, patriotic, destructive, victorious, glorified. What about the truth of war? It's impossible to describe in only one sentence, let alone with a word. Our country is made up of soldiers, ones that are on leave, veterans, and family of soldiers. They are our neighbors and our co-workers. They have fought for our country, so shouldn't we try to understand what they go through, to protect us again and again? For a soldier the truth of war doesn't lay on the battlefield, it doesn’t dwell in the orders they receive. The truth is in the triggers they pull, the lives they see fade from enemies' eyes and the screams that keep him up at night. When he tries to convey the truth he witnessed he can only skim the depths of the vast fissure war created in his heart.
After the war soldiers realize the strategies they used and the drills they did and the orders they followed aren't what they remember. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul talks about how during their first few times of going through drills, the young soldiers realized they, "…were trained for heroism as though we were circus-ponies…We learned in fact that some of these things were necessary, but the rest merely show." (Remarque, pg. 22) The soldiers thought of the drills as show. Just like in a play, if you only watch the actors go through their motions, you won't see the deeper meaning of the play. If the soldiers only went through the motions of war and became robots of war, they would never find the deeper meaning. The soldiers describe themselvesas circus ponies, which isn't very flattering. The way they describe themselves, makes it seem like they are making light of the situation, that even in the early parts of a soldier's war career, that they know that there is no truth in the orders or drills. By realizing that it's not the orders where the truth lays, a soldier digs deeper into the fissure in his heart that war created. Instead of remembering the drills and strategies, the soldiers take away with them the deaths they caused and the pain they inflicted.
The deaths the soldiers caused will always be with them. The guilt can ruin a soldier.The author of a blog about real soldiers wrote, "Many soldiers who have killed in war are wracked by guilt when they should not be." (Thoughts of a Soldier-Ethicist) Many people believe that what soldiers do is justified. But when they try to convey that to soldiers, the soldiers are so filled with guilt that they aren't able to believe it. The guilt can consume a soldier's mind and thoughts, it can keep a soldier up at night.
A soldier is regarded as a hero, but he finds it hard to believe when the screams of terror keep him up at night. At night, "…waking out of a dream, overwhelmed and bewitched by the crowding apparitions, a man perceives with alarm how slight is the support, how thin the boundary that divides him from the darkness…Then the muffled roar of the battle becomes a ring that encircles us, we creep in upon ourselves, and with big eyes stare into the night." (Remarque, pg. 275) A soldier eventually realizes that the guilt he is holding within himself is slowly eating away at his conscious. There's a point in time when he realizes that there is a short time before it completely consumes him. At night when he hears the screams of the dying the frail curtain that separates him from going mad, thins even more. The delicate curtain also separates him from those he loves.
Although war greatly impacts soldiers, it also impacts the ones who love them. A wife of a soldier describes how she sees her husband: "Yesterday I came into our room and saw him staring at the wall. He was pale, diaphoretic, and clenching his fists…He said he was fine and didn’t want to talk about it." (Thoughts of a Soldier-Ethicist) Even if a soldier tries to keep it locked up, there will always be a time when he isn't able to do so. It frightens the loved ones of a soldier, to see him suffering constantly from the guilt. A family member is already in tune with how the soldier was before the war, so when he comes home they will always be able to notice a difference. When family members can sense that something is not right with him, they are able to make an attempt at saving him from himself. Wars affect everyone, their loved ones, those killed, families of those killed, and soldiers themselves.
The war is such a big event in a soldier's life that it is always in the back of the soldier's mind. After the war sometimes soldiers have to remind themselves that they are home: "I breathe deeply and say over to myself:--'You are at home, you are at home.' But a sense of strangeness will not leave me, I cannot feel at home amongst these things" (Remarque, pg. 160) The war makes it so that wherever a soldiers is, he will always have a sense of strangeness. Even when he is home, the war overcrowds his sub-consciousness, making him believe that he will never fit in anywhere. Without a sense of being, a soldier is not whole. Because he is unable to feel any sense of home, a hole is created in his heart.
"I am very quiet. Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whenever I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me." (pg. 295 AQotWF) A soldier can listen to all those people who tell him, that he is a hero and that he didn't have a choice, he did what he had to, but he will always have the guilt inside of him. And that guilt changes him, although he may not think it. The war makes him wiser. But even with all of that wisdom he may never fully understand the truth of war. If a soldier cannot understand the whole truth, than how are we, simple citizens, to? A soldier may believe that war has not changed him, but it has. It has made him wiser. He may not be able to understand how it changed him. And he may not be able to convey what he went through. And we, as civilians, will never be able to understand the whole truth of war.
Bibliography
VONNEGUT, Kurt. Slaughterhouse 5. New York: Dell
Publishing, 1993. Print.
"Thoughts of a
Soldier-Ethicist." Thoughts
of a Soldier-Ethicist. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2012.
< http://soldier-ethicist.blogspot.com/>.
Remarque, Erich
Maria, and A. W. Wheen. All quiet on the
western front;. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1929.
Print.
When you think about war, what comes to mind? Can you explain it in one word? Terrible, horrific, dehumanized, deadly, traumatic, inevitable, tragic, patriotic, destructive, victorious, glorified. What about the truth of war? It's impossible to describe in only one sentence, let alone with a word. Our country is made up of soldiers, ones that are on leave, veterans, and family of soldiers. They are our neighbors and our co-workers. They have fought for our country, so shouldn't we try to understand what they go through, to protect us again and again? For a soldier the truth of war doesn't lay on the battlefield, it doesn’t dwell in the orders they receive. The truth is in the triggers they pull, the lives they see fade from enemies' eyes and the screams that keep him up at night. When he tries to convey the truth he witnessed he can only skim the depths of the vast fissure war created in his heart.
After the war soldiers realize the strategies they used and the drills they did and the orders they followed aren't what they remember. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul talks about how during their first few times of going through drills, the young soldiers realized they, "…were trained for heroism as though we were circus-ponies…We learned in fact that some of these things were necessary, but the rest merely show." (Remarque, pg. 22) The soldiers thought of the drills as show. Just like in a play, if you only watch the actors go through their motions, you won't see the deeper meaning of the play. If the soldiers only went through the motions of war and became robots of war, they would never find the deeper meaning. The soldiers describe themselvesas circus ponies, which isn't very flattering. The way they describe themselves, makes it seem like they are making light of the situation, that even in the early parts of a soldier's war career, that they know that there is no truth in the orders or drills. By realizing that it's not the orders where the truth lays, a soldier digs deeper into the fissure in his heart that war created. Instead of remembering the drills and strategies, the soldiers take away with them the deaths they caused and the pain they inflicted.
The deaths the soldiers caused will always be with them. The guilt can ruin a soldier.The author of a blog about real soldiers wrote, "Many soldiers who have killed in war are wracked by guilt when they should not be." (Thoughts of a Soldier-Ethicist) Many people believe that what soldiers do is justified. But when they try to convey that to soldiers, the soldiers are so filled with guilt that they aren't able to believe it. The guilt can consume a soldier's mind and thoughts, it can keep a soldier up at night.
A soldier is regarded as a hero, but he finds it hard to believe when the screams of terror keep him up at night. At night, "…waking out of a dream, overwhelmed and bewitched by the crowding apparitions, a man perceives with alarm how slight is the support, how thin the boundary that divides him from the darkness…Then the muffled roar of the battle becomes a ring that encircles us, we creep in upon ourselves, and with big eyes stare into the night." (Remarque, pg. 275) A soldier eventually realizes that the guilt he is holding within himself is slowly eating away at his conscious. There's a point in time when he realizes that there is a short time before it completely consumes him. At night when he hears the screams of the dying the frail curtain that separates him from going mad, thins even more. The delicate curtain also separates him from those he loves.
Although war greatly impacts soldiers, it also impacts the ones who love them. A wife of a soldier describes how she sees her husband: "Yesterday I came into our room and saw him staring at the wall. He was pale, diaphoretic, and clenching his fists…He said he was fine and didn’t want to talk about it." (Thoughts of a Soldier-Ethicist) Even if a soldier tries to keep it locked up, there will always be a time when he isn't able to do so. It frightens the loved ones of a soldier, to see him suffering constantly from the guilt. A family member is already in tune with how the soldier was before the war, so when he comes home they will always be able to notice a difference. When family members can sense that something is not right with him, they are able to make an attempt at saving him from himself. Wars affect everyone, their loved ones, those killed, families of those killed, and soldiers themselves.
The war is such a big event in a soldier's life that it is always in the back of the soldier's mind. After the war sometimes soldiers have to remind themselves that they are home: "I breathe deeply and say over to myself:--'You are at home, you are at home.' But a sense of strangeness will not leave me, I cannot feel at home amongst these things" (Remarque, pg. 160) The war makes it so that wherever a soldiers is, he will always have a sense of strangeness. Even when he is home, the war overcrowds his sub-consciousness, making him believe that he will never fit in anywhere. Without a sense of being, a soldier is not whole. Because he is unable to feel any sense of home, a hole is created in his heart.
"I am very quiet. Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whenever I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me." (pg. 295 AQotWF) A soldier can listen to all those people who tell him, that he is a hero and that he didn't have a choice, he did what he had to, but he will always have the guilt inside of him. And that guilt changes him, although he may not think it. The war makes him wiser. But even with all of that wisdom he may never fully understand the truth of war. If a soldier cannot understand the whole truth, than how are we, simple citizens, to? A soldier may believe that war has not changed him, but it has. It has made him wiser. He may not be able to understand how it changed him. And he may not be able to convey what he went through. And we, as civilians, will never be able to understand the whole truth of war.
Bibliography
VONNEGUT, Kurt. Slaughterhouse 5. New York: Dell
Publishing, 1993. Print.
"Thoughts of a
Soldier-Ethicist." Thoughts
of a Soldier-Ethicist. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2012.
< http://soldier-ethicist.blogspot.com/>.
Remarque, Erich
Maria, and A. W. Wheen. All quiet on the
western front;. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1929.
Print.