Analysis Of The Book ' The Sergeant '

“I still couldn’t comprehend that this might be a matter of life and death, that this was the most serious thing I’d ever been involved in.”

In the essay, The Colonel, Michael Hogan illustrates the importance of the influential sport of tennis. Hogan writes about how tennis changed his life from an early age. When he was younger he saw tennis as a rich mans sport in which he had no interest. One of his much-respected neighbors, the colonel, approached Hogan’s father with the idea that his son might like to learn how to play tennis. After pondering the thought with his father, Hogan decided to take the offer. The Colonel became his mentor as they spent tireless days perfecting his swing, improving his serve, and practicing against each other. His main competitor though was a boy named Tommy Gallagher. Often, the two boys would compete with the victor being Gallagher. Yet, Hogan

Black Hearts tells the story of a few bad soldiers from 1st platoon, Bravo company of the 1-502nd Infantry Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division, that was plagued with toxic leadership and lack of control over soldiers. The book documents the events that led to the ultimate demise of the soldiers involved in the horrific incident that occurred on March 12, 2006. Four soldiers were arrested in the brutal murder of an Iraqi family, which was a result of the lack of leadership and structure these soldiers received. Black Hearts takes a deep look into what happened to this troubled platoon and what unfortunate events occurred during their deployment.

Published in 2008, The Forever War by Dexter Filkins compiles a series of vignettes that detail his encounters as a reporter in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Released a year after, director Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker also examines a harrowing account of the conflicts in Iraq. Both works poignantly present the unbridled violence that plague the region, and the futility of a war embedded within a vicious cycle of retaliation. Nevertheless, the portrayal of vengeance as a major motivating force of the war, as well as the war’s isolating and demoralizing effect on its witnesses, are better achieved in The Forever War. Contrary to the sole perspective of an American Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) team in The Hurt Locker, Filkins includes multiple angles to explore each of the elements portrayed, and ultimately offers a more profound, subtle, and enduring explication than the film.

“We brought you here because Anna is studying you in class, and needs to ask you some questions .” Paisley said with a smile. “

The foundation of today’s society is not in immense chaos or destruction, but rather in an organizational order because of the choice in obedience. As depicted in the movie, “A Few Good Men”, obedience is questioned due to soldiers choosing to obey or not when it presents the case of Lance Cpl. Harold Dawson and Pfc. Louden Downey being disciplined for committing a crime, even if they were only following orders. Eric Fromm, a social psychologist and psychoanalyst, furthers points in whether it is permissible to commit a crime under the pretext of obeying orders in his article, “Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem”. Comparatively, Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, addresses obedience overriding

The book NewJack: Guarding Sing Sing by Ted Conover is an profound book to read it gave me a great glimpse of how the prison life really is and how you can put yourself in comparing how Hollywood movies or TV shows displays them. Conover discuss about the history of Sing Sing prison since 1826. It was an authentic and straight forward of how the prison life is especially for those who want to pursue as a correctional officers. It gave two perspectives one from the guards and the other by the inmates. It shows a psychological effects of violence between the guards and inmates within the cell walls also it gave the transformation life in training and life with inmates. What surprise me in the book it only took the recruiters seven weeks training camp during those week they had to “write the use of force, from penal law to “standard of inmates behavior”… there would be tests every Friday, on which we had to score 70 percent or better. We’d have two hours of physical performance test in out last week. We’d learn how to use batons and how to fight hand to hand in a course called Defensive Tactics. We’d have to qualify on a shooting range. Finally, we’d be exposed to tear gas and learn how to fire gas guns (p.23).” The training camp was very similar to a military boot camp. After the seven weeks of training they all went straight to prison work during prison they had to deal with the hardship, stress and chaos surrounding the job of officers and what they go through during

Study by definition is the application of mind to the knowledge that one have, as by reading, observation, writing or talking. Many people have acknowledged the benefits of studies in lives and that is one of the reason why the education system exist. Studies have lots of advantages, but if people both study and apply it to their lives, the knowledge that they have would last longer and give more benefits to them. In “Of Studies,” Francis Bacon points out about the importance of studies and how it is useful in practical application. In “The Colonel,” Michael Hogan describes his experiences in learning tennis from an army colonel who also taught him life’s lessons. Although Bacon and Hogan are both writing about knowledge and lessons, that

“I swear, I don’t know. I’ll tell you everything she told me, but she didn’t tell me where she was going.”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know what these are,” she replies. “Why were you late?”

I have put myself in the place of one of the soldiers in the boat. I am a reinforcement and a support to those already fighting and trying to conquer Constantinople.

Carolyn Forche, author of The Colonel, writes this poem in a prose style technique. Prose poetry is a communicative stye that sounds natural and uses correct grammatical structure, but refrains from employing rhythmic arrangement ("Prose Examples and Definition..."). The focus of the poem begins with an ordinary family and the details of a routine day; however, this quickly develops with the sudden detail “a pistol on the cushion beside him” and induces a major tonal shift. Forche commences objective imagery to exhibit the negative connotations the Colonel possesses and compares this to the normal lifestyle of the family. Readers of the poem may overlook the importance of blunt imagery and prose style poetry; however, a closer analysis allows

Chapter seven begins with the men all hanging around in their trenches talking about all of their men who have either died or are dying as they speak. Paul then goes on a monologue talking about his fallen brothers, and is saying how they are just resting and how they will now battle even harder for them now. One day the men are Walking, Paul and Kropp see a movie poster with a young female on it. They both stop and scan the poster in amazement. They both forgot about such beauty and forgot about the other kinds of life they had previously. Then when the men are bathing they see three girls and ask if they would come down to their river to talk. They say no because they can’t cross their enemy lines and neither can Paul and his comrades. So

In the book A Soldier’s Secret, the story is told from the perspective of Sarah Emma Edmonds, alias Frank Thompson. Sarah Emma Edmonds is a soldier, nurse, and spy for the Union Army of the Civil War. To avoid an arranged marriage and get away from her father’s abusive hands, Sarah escaped Brunswick, Canada dressed in her brother’s clothes as a man. You learn very quickly that the story is told Sarah’s perspective. For example, when Sarah is enlisting, she is told that she cannot enlist because she is too young. When this happens, Sarah states, “I freeze. Can he tell? I’m wearing a shirt, vest, and trousers as usual, my curly hair cut short except for a lock that insists on falling over my forehead” (1). This shows

When a reader first starts reading the story, it seems as though everything that these soldiers carry is completely normal because their “necessities [are] P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wrist watches, dog tags, mosquito repellent, chewing gum, candy, cigarettes, salt tables, packets of Kool-Aid, lighters, matches, sewing kits, Military Payment Certificates, canteens of water” (O’Brien 97). These are the items that any soldier in any war would need to have in order to go into war; but further in, the reader learns, “the soldiers also carry stories: stories that connect ‘the past to the future’ (40), stories that ‘never seem… to end’ (83), and stories ‘that swirl back and forth across the border between trivia and bedlam, the mad and the mundane’ (101)” (Calloway 249). Here, Calloway’s repetition emphasizes the hardship the soldiers go through resulting in these stories that they carry. Each significant item that a soldier carries shows their inner self and who they really are, it shows the sides of them that they cannot possibly show during the time of war.