Seth Marlin's Essay 'Smoke Of Empire'

Walter Dean Myers touches on a subject that give thought to war in general in his book Sunrise Over Fallujah. Sunrise Over Fallujah focuses on the Iraq war after 9/11 and a young man’s experiences while there. The Historical significance of sunrise Over Fallujah is that the young man, Robin “Birdy” Perry, realizes shortly after arriving in Iraq that this war will not end quickly, and that he doesn’t even really understand why he is there, or why his country, for that matter is there. There is a lot from Sunrise Over Fallujah that relates to real life occurrences and thoughts in and about the war in Iraq.

Tim O’Brien uses juxtaposition in order to prove the point that war is neither black nor white; but rather something of a more paradoxical nature. While describing the qualities of a war story in the chapter, “How to Tell a True War Story,” O’Brien explains the varying truths that follow soldiers after they endure the conditions of war. “In war you lose your sense of the definite,

There are three main characters in my story, their names being; Alephonsion Deng, Benson Deng, and Benjamin Ajak. These three boys, young as they were, are driven away from their own home with violence. This caused a significant change in how they viewed the world.“I couldn't understand why people were killing us. Did Alchol deserve to die? What wrong had we done to these people? Oh, Ma, why the killing?” The three boys also act so different compared to how we do, when around their own home they are expected to never cry, even this is put to the limits during some everyday tasks. One thing that is way different from the way we live is that, to be seen as a man, you must have your teeth

In If I die In a Combat Zone by Tim O’Brien, the author shows how the hatred of war can cause remorse and sadness through memories. He uses his experiences as a radio operator in Vietnam war to showcase the range of emotions he was feeling at the time. O’Brien shows this by using memories and his comrades to paint a picture on how the war in Vietnam affected him for the rest of his life. O’Brien shows how he felt about the war through memories. Even though he opposes the war he still finds himself unable to disconnect from it.

The mental implications of war on the soldiers challenged the way they functioned day to day. In the ‘Next War’ Owen demonstrates the mental implications through personifying death and engaging the responder with sensory imagery.

The very first essay, “At Play In The Paradise of Bombs” is a prime example of his use of devices in this manner. The title of the essay itself is an oxymoron because it is unlikely to have a “paradise” surrounded by violent war devices capable of obliterating the very existence of Sanders’ “paradise” on the Arsenal. The title also relays two feelings Sanders’ had about his upbringing; in one sense his childhood was a paradise because of the good times the kids had playing together and the fellowship the families had living together on the Arsenal. This feeling of paradise can be identified in a passage from the first essay, “Like campers drawn up around a fire, like wagons wound into a fearful ring, the houses faced inward on the Circle, as if to reassure the occupants, for immediately outside that tamed hoop the forest began, a tangled, beast-haunted woods stretching for miles in every direction.” This passage also does well to demonstrate the second sentiment Sanders’ has about his childhood home. The Arsenal, the nickname for the plot of land where several families dwelled, was home to many unexploded testing bombs which kept everyone confined to the safety of their Circle and designated areas. Because of this, in the book the author uses a tone that lets the reader know his childhood had a constant fear of the bombs that laid below his

“It’s not pretty exactly. It’s astonishing. It fills the eye. It commands you,” (81) is a quote from Tim O’Brien’s book, The Things They Carried. This quote shows how war can affect an individual through taking over one’s body and mind. War affects everyone in different ways, but it is impossible to understand how war affects each and every single person. The texts and forms of art communicate different ideas to the viewer. It is through interpreting these texts that humans get a better idea of the overall impact of war. When individuals experience war, they lose their innocence and morality. This will be evident through “How to Tell a True War Story,” “The Wound,” and “Machine Gun.”

War is hell. The images that passed through the conciousness of those who participated in the Vietnam War left indelible visions. Rather than giving an opinion of,the war, Komunyakaa writes with a structure designed to allow the reader to experience the images and form their own opinions. The visions, images and experiences of thevietnam War as expressed by Komunyakaa vividly displays the war through his eyes and allows one to obtain the experiences of the war without being there. The title of the book when translated means "crazy soldier." This title gives the reader an immediate sense of the mind set developed by the soldiers. In providing further insight to the soldiers point of view, Specialist 4 Arthur "Gene" Woodley, Jr.

Hundreds of bodies littered the ground. Sounds of explosions and endless gunfire filled the air. Soldiers, with their uniforms splashed in crimson, fought viciously and ruthlessly. Their main objective, which was to win the battle, took a backseat to their newfound desperation to stay alive. After all, war is not a game, especially one such as the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, and left its survivors haunted by a multitude of atrocious events. Terry Erickson’s father and George Robinson, who were two fictional characters from the short stories “Stop the Sun” and “Dear America”, respectively, were veterans of the Vietnam War. The differences and similarities between Terry’s father and George Robinson are striking, and they merit rigorous scrutiny.

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

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

In Otto Dix’s “Shock Troops Advance Under Gas”, Dix presents the brutality of war for everyone to see. From the barbed wire snagging a troop’s arm to the gas masks, this work illustrates true horror. Dix’s illustration of war helps display that war truly is not something to write home about with pride. Thus, I present the argument that war is not something to be patriotic over, and it is not something we should be thanking the troops for. They are brave individuals, but the duties they perform are not – they are the product of cowardly nations. The purpose of this paper is to convey my personal feelings towards this work, war and how it is not the answer, and tying in my visit to the McNay Art Museum back to aspects of war.

This passage made me connect the Vietnam War and the Iraq War with my own life. I continue to live my life day by day without the acknowledgement of the war going on in Iraq at this very moment. The war in Iraq is broadcasted daily but it seems only a reality to the soldiers participating. While I continue with my daily activities the soldiers in Iraq are fighting for their own lives and country. It seems as if it is just an alternate world in which I am privileged to view and do not have to live the reality of being in the war myself.

Wiesel uses imagery to paint you a picture, a terrible one but, it 's one that you will not forget. Wiesel wants you to understand that these concentration camps were no girl scout camps, but a camp where it was life or death at any given moment. Wiesel shows you through his diction that the events that occurred at that camp still eat away at him to this present day.

War is a dangerous game, many people would likely agree to this, however, very few have ever seen a battlefront. The truth is that war, no matter how awful we can imagine it, is always exponentially worse. In Timothy Findley’s The Wars, Robert Ross, the protagonist,­ faces a situation that he finds difficult to come to terms with, and when faced with a similar situation later on in the novel, he must take drastic measures to reconcile the uncertainties of the past situation. Timothy Findley suggests, through the life of Robert Ross, that one’s need to reconcile the uncertainties of past experiences dominate our actions when such situations come up again in our lives. In the words of Hiram Johnson, a US Senator during the First World War,