American Soldier's Sorrow

On March 27, 2007 Marine Staff Sergeant Marc Golczynski was killed by enemy fire while on patrol in the al-Aanbar province of Iraq. This photo was taken by photographer Aaron Thompson for The Daily News Journal on the day of Sgt. Golczynski’s funeral. It shows a grief stricken eight year old Christian Golczynski stepping forward to accept the folded american flag, which moments before was draped over his father’s casket. This image makes you question the war effort and if it is worth this very real cost. I believe it does this very well.

Everyday men and women die in the most brutal way possible away from their family either killed from gun shots or landmines and they do come back. But in caskets, as images like these emphasize the destruction of war and these snaps just show the side effects of humankind's worse anger being shown. In the Article “The Stranger in the Photo Is Me”, Donald M. Murray expresses how harsh it really was in the war and how it changed himself forever and not in a good way. Not to mention, that he describes the way he felt ready to go to war, maybe even excited, but he wishes that horror on no one “I would not wish for a child or grandchild of mine to undergo the blood test of war” as the sacrifice these men and women go through is undeniably tremendous

I choose the first image as I believe it implies a stream of emotional values between a physically damaged child and a soldier spiritually broken because of the crushing scene. The pathos conveyed in the picture mixes the tragedy of war, the awfulness of tearing families, and the destruction of civilization. The fighter was holding the child as a mother holding her baby, the warrior forgot the mission he was sent to do and found himself a caring human for the innocent people. The man closed his eyes as a sign of misery and sorrow, hugged the child trying to give him/her love, care, warmth, and safety. I suppose that the man was thinking about how this baby could be his son, daughter, family, or himself and how lack of luck, the unfair life

Bang! Bang! “At that instant several gunshots, which sounded like thunder striking the tin-roofed houses, took over town. The sound of guns was so terrifying it confused everyone” (Beah 23). In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah conveys his amazing journey through war and hardship as a child soldier. Sierra Leone--a country on the western coast of Africa--was embroiled in a bloody civil war in the 1990’s. Battles multiplied as bloodshed abounded and as a child, Ishmael Beah was forced to survive, find food, and face unimaginable dangers. Running from the battle front was also a routine ordeal. At age 13 Beah was captured by the military and brainwashed into using guns and drugs. As a child soldier, he perpetrated and witnessed a great deal of violence. At 15 he was rescued and taken to a rehabilitation center. With time and continual treatment, Beah was able to recover, to some extent, and reconnect with his Uncle Tommy, who adopted him. He was later chosen to speak to the United Nations in New York City about his experiences as a child soldier. When he returned to Sierra Leone, war broke out throughout the city where he lived, causing many deaths including his Uncle Tommy. Eventually Beah escaped Sierra Leone and managed to reach New York City, where he began a new life. Through the book A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah conveys a central theme of having to survive, at a young age, through the hardships of war with the use of imagery.

The rambunctious behavior of the soldier’s triumphant victory is a strong message visually for the viewer. These soldiers struggle to find their identity and once the war ends, the identity they’ve build at war vanishes, (McCutcheon, 2007). As a result, they essentially lose a part of them selves, (McCutcheon, 2007). When they return home, many soldiers struggle with psychological issues that prevent them from resuming their once regular lives, (McCutcheon, 2007). The images of soldiers celebrating at the end of war give the viewer a taste of this problem. This also allows the viewer insight to the deeper issues surrounding an American soldier’s mental stability and mentality. Through this image, along with many others throughout the film, the viewer is able to dig deeper and truly analyze what they are seeing.

Wars are fought for freedom and independence and usually when soldiers come home we receive them with open arms ready to praise them and thank them for putting their lives on the line. If you were asked to describe a soldier, you’d probably say heroic, brave, courageous, or honorable. After the Vietnam War, parades weren’t the welcoming soldiers got; instead, they were shunned and booed at.

In Gary Paulsen novel Soldier’s Heart we meet Charley Goddard.He is 15 years old and he lives in Minnesota.He has a brother that lives with his mom.He thinks the war will be fun. I am Courtney Douglass I am a student at Rivercrest. I love to dance I have been in dance for seven years.

Some of the difficulty the soldiers faced were riots back home not supporting them. “From the sound of the news we get in the Pacific Stars and Stripes, the majority of Americans couldn't care less that we are here either. Everyone's against us.” This shows that even the people of the united states think this war was a lost cause. The united states people opposed it because it lacked a clear objective, and it was unwinnable fight against communism. Most soldiers were drafted so they had to be there it wasn’t something they believed in. Some soldiers did not understand the scrutiny towards them because most didn't want to be there either, so why be angry at them. Though these were the only difficulties found in the diary, soldiers also faced

The village was very miniscule and when he arrived with several other men it was complete havoc. After a woman came up to Harrah asking to help find her child, he worked nine hours searching for a pin in a haystack. Feeling defeated, Harrah lied down to rest. At that moment, he heard the cry of a baby, and several hours later the ten-day-old baby was saved from under concrete. They referred to the baby as ‘miracle-baby”. Mohammed Farah, one of the men at the rescue scene emotionally describes the scene in a Netflix documentary, “And I started to cry. I couldn’t hold it in, and all my colleagues started to cry” (The White Helmets). This is a story of perseverance, to Harrah it did not matter if the child was ten-days-old or fifteen years old. He saw the opportunity to save a life and he took it. Today, the baby is alive and

As I started my walk from my dorm to Sarah Moody Gallery on Tuesday afternoon, I started to think about what I was about to see and how it would make me feel. I never expected to get so emotional by looking at a few pieces of art on the walls and sculptures on the ground. Once I arrived at the gallery, I started to examine my surroundings. From the outside, the gallery looked like an old, rustic brick building, much like any other building at the University of Alabama. Ms. Dyer started to tell the class about the authors journey to Syria, and my heart started to weep for the children. She told us that James Neel was supposed to visit a Syrian refugee camp; however, he did not because of his encounter with a few former Syrian fighters that wanted to take him to see the real effects of shrapnel on the children. There, he saw children with severed spines, missing limbs, and extensive burns. Ms. Dyer continued with the story, and she gave the class a few statistics. The most gut wrenching statistic was that every five minutes, a child died. She ended the story, and we were left to make our own opinions.

He was the boss, so Mike handed over the flare. He offered a quick training session on how to ignite the flare and then scurried off. Two minutes later, we saw the flare screaming horizontally across the open space between us and the aggressor machine gun. All we could think was, oh shit, that’s not good. Sure enough, the flare impacted the ridge 2 feet under the barrel of the machine gun, causing the gunners to scatter like cockroaches. The flare burst into its illumination stage and burned hard and bright for 105 to 115 seconds. We rushed the camp, rescued the captives, and made our way back to our lines. As soon as we got back, they terminated the DAD exercise and had everyone rally up back in the training camp bleachers.

The collection of poems “Theater”, “Water”, and “Safe House” by Solmaz Sharif shows the varied viewpoints of how war affects the speakers and how death is all too common in the midst of warfare. The author uses a spectrum of literary techniques to enhance the experience of the reader, so we can fully grasp the severity of each speaker’s plight. All of Sharif’s poems differ in form with the use of white space and indentations in “Theater”, colons in “Water”, and a style of abecedarian using the letter S in “Safe House”. While her diverse use of forms generate different emotions from the reader, they share the same notion of how violence is problematic. Each poem has a unique outlook to the sight of war: “Theater” being in the position of a victim and an assailant of war, “Water” explaining a war mission and fatalities in terse terms, and “Safe House” as an observer of an activist against war. Sharif’s strategy to exemplify the effects of how war affects the victim and the civilian is particularly critical because mass media tends to hide the collateral damage of war and only illustrates why we should attack the “enemy”. Another approach the author uses to critique the speakers central conflicts is by arranging words from the US Department of Defense 's Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, to concur with the message of the several ways war influences the lives of those who are unwillingly encompassed by it. Sharif uses poetry as an outlet to show the underlying tone

Far too often, war is glorified and soldiers are praised for their service, when their service is, in reality, a disservice. Soldiers are sent off into foreign countries to kill, almost always, innocent people, and here Fearing is using imagery to

Recently, I saw a man sitting on a park bench at a local recreation area that I frequent often. He was elderly, maybe in his 60’s or so. I can only guess at his age because of certain visual signs that he portrayed such as his slouching form, shaky hands and tan wrinkles that were formed around his eyes and mouth. I’d never seen him in the area prior to this occasion, so I was curious as to why he was there, all alone.

In World War 2 over 65 million people lost their lives. The emotional toll on the families of the lost soldiers soon followed. Throughout World War 2 we gained many allies, but because of all the destruction that the was caused, for example, peoples homes and all their precious materials being stolen or destroyed, we lost a vast majority of those them. The taking of so many lives and destroying of countries can cause a lot of hate on the nations that inflicted this destruction. This can cause young kids to grow up hating other nations and that is when conflict can start. The lives that are lost during wartime are undeniably one of the biggest causes of death. One thing that every country has in common is the death toll that they face in war. Conflict arises no matter what the cause. The way to grow as a world is to control these conflicts with verbal communication instead of using war as an option.