American Soldier's Sorrow

For my book report, I read the book War Heroes Voices from Iraq by Allan Zullo. The author interviewed ten soldiers about the time they spent in Iraq. The book tells ten different real life stories of soldiers and what amazing things they did in Iraq. The one thing all of these soldiers have in common is that they thought they were just doing their jobs. These soldiers are true heroes because each of them risked their own lives to save others and to protect our country. Even though a lot of soldiers would do that, not all survive to tell about it.

The destruction in Syria has been incessant since March of 2011 when protestors 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

The Hardship of a Child Soldier 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.

War is a traumatizing experience for anyone, but especially for children. A Long Way Gone demonstrates how a child’s innocence can be taken away

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

For the seventeen Soldiers portrayed in “The Things We Carried” by Tim O’Brien, the physical pain was very minimal weight to carry compared to the emotional scars that they will carry throughout their entire life. This story does an amazing job portraying full human emotion that anyone put into a situation would feel, such as heavy guilt, sadness, anger, lack of motivation, perseverance, horror, and false security. All of these are notorious feelings that every soldier back in history, and now still feel when they are on a mission. “The Things They carried” shows a deep vulnerability of everyday human’s thought process during times of great stress, that before, wasn’t considered by the general public and media when speaking about what it

Individuals everywhere grimace at war. Images of the strike of the gun, the burst of the bombs, and the clash of the soldiers all elicit a wince and a shiver. Moviegoers close their eyes during gory battle scenes and open them again only once the whine of the bullets stops rattling in their ears. War is hell, as the common aphorism goes, and the pain of war is equally hellish. Most individuals naturally accept this conclusion despite never experiencing war themselves. Without enduring the actual pain of war injuries, individuals still argue the importance war and its miseries. Individuals rely on media and entertainment for education about the suffering and evils of war. Writers provide an acute sense of a soldier’s physical and mental

death, the incredible hatred that must cause such acts of brutality. The broadcasting of war and the effect it has on soldiers who participated give us preconceived ideas about the horrors of war. These generalizations are ingrained in children from the day they could ask their parents about war. From

As an illustration, the author describes the scenery of the battlefield, “The most vivid images of the war show soldiers facing the hardships and terrors of battle. Some confronted the enemy in well-defined battles in the highlands. Others cut their way through the jungle, where they heard but seldom saw the enemy. Still others waded through rice paddies and searched rural villages for guerrillas… They were rarely safe. Enemy rockets and mortars could--and did--strike anywhere” (Boyer 2). By using descriptive language, the author illustrates the soldiers surroundings and evoke the reader’s sense of terror. With this in mind, this gives the readers a better understanding of how inhumane war is and how the severity of war torments soldiers by them through physiological traumatizing experiences. Furthermore, the author quotes a nurse recalling her experiences in a field hospital, “We really saw the worse of it, because the nurses never saw any of the victories...I remember one boy who was brought in missing two legs and an arm, and his eyes were bandaged. A general came in later and pinned a Purple Heart on the boy’s hospital gown, and the horror of it all was so amazing that it just took my breath away. You thought, was this supposed to be an even trade?” (Boyer 2). By using imagery, the author cites a nurse who describes the boy’s injuries in detail and appeals

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

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.

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.

Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., wrote: “The soldier is the Army. No army is better than its soldiers. The Soldier is also a citizen. In fact, the highest obligation and privilege of citizenship is that of bearing arms for one’s country.” With the all volunteer military, more and more americans are being disconnected with their peers, and fewer are choosing to serve. The divide between these two americans is wider than ever before. When Veterans try to share their experiences, many people might not be able to offer empathy. Tim O’Brian in “How to Tell a True War Story” constantly reiterates that war stories could be shared in perspective of the fire fights and theatrics, but a more effective one sheds light on the soldier’s ability to make sense

Children's scars from armed conflict are not always as evident as a bullet wound or a lost

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