Where Men Win Glory, Jon Krakauer

A Few Good Men portrays the importance of military orders, the reality of the ranking system and how much military leader’s authority can cloud their judgement. Former psychology professor at Yale, Stanley Milgram sought the reasoning behind the blindness of individuals when ordered to perform a task for someone who seems to be an authority figure. His infamous experiment was and is currently being dug through and examined thoroughly. Milgram’s research caught the attention of fellow psychologist Philip Zimbardo. Zimbardo conducted an experiment with similar interests in mind. He collected 21 men from newspaper advertisements to live in a false prison and live in the prison for two weeks. The experiment lasted six days due to how quickly the experiment escalated and transformed the “prisoners” and “guards” (Zimbardo 116). Their conclusions from both experiments are that power and stress can transform even the strongest willed people. Zimbardo and Milgram discuss the same sort of entitlement Colonel Jessup presumes to order an illegal code red due to his position on the base at Guantanamo Bay; also the entitlement Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee had over the case due to the position his father once had.

The main character and protagonist, Jon Krakauer, is a United States client and journalist who is on an expedition to climb to the summit of Mt. Everest. He takes the reader through his horrifying experiences on the mountain, including the death of his team, lack of oxygen, and horrible weather. The conflict in this novel is an internal and external conflict. It is an internal conflict of man vs. himself. Jon Krakauer, had to go through mental states of giving up and dying on the mountain

"Battleground America," written by Jill Lepore, provides a strong history of guns and the way they have changed in the eyes of the American through the years. She proves her point with strong evidence throughout her article, sprinkling it with opinion and argument that is strongly supported. She presents her argument to convince her audience that the open availability of guns allows citizens to undeservingly purchase them by displaying the credibility in her sources, using negative connotations in her speech, and the strength and objectivity only a strong logos appeal can provide.

After our class viewing of the Age of Champions as well as reading the numerous articles including one by Rowe & Kahn, it is clear that there is a variety of ways people can view the term “aging successfully.” A variety of gerontologists have similarities and differences in their definition of the term, and this paper will compare some of the athletes from the film these definitions.

Where Men Win Glory epitomizes the ideal environment for a family to thrive and advance. As a child, Pat and his brother were left to their own devices when playing in their expansive backyard. With few TV channels and an infinitesimal media presence, Pat and Kevin experienced a nurturing home that instilled positive virtues and allowed them to grow as human beings from an early age. This enabled them to be who they were – mature, sophisticated, and virtuous human beings. Even with that being said, sometimes one must undergo a momentous change to hasten the learning curve – Pat was no exception.

Precise writers make linguistic choices to create certain effects. They want to have their readers react in a certain way. Go back through the text and analyze Krakauer’s use of words, sentences, and paragraphs, and take note as to how effective a writer he is.

Forty-two years after entering the concentration camp for the first time, Elie Wiesel remarked, “Just as man cannot live without dreams, he cannot live without hope” (Nobel Lecture 1). This means a lot from someone who endured almost two years of the terror in the WWII concentration camps. During these two years, Elie endured the sadness of leaving his former life and faith behind, the pain of living off of scraps of bread, and the trepidation of the “selections”, where he almost lost his father. He watched the hanging of innocent people, was beat by Kapos and guards time after time, and marched in a death march right after having a foot surgery. Through all of this, he survived because he remained hopeful. Hope was all the Jewish people

To the United States, World War II is believed to be a good war, and why wouldn’t it be considered as such? During World War II, in addition to stopping mass genocide and stopping the spread of Nazism and Fascism, the United States beat Japan after their attack on Pearl Harbor. As a result, the U.S. was no longer in the Depression and the United States became a world power. However, in “The Best War Ever,” Michael C.C. Adams argues that as a result of Hollywood’s glamorization of the war, government propaganda/censorship, and the widespread of economic prosperity, Americans were kept in the dark about the truth regarding World War II resulting in the popular belief and myth that World War II was a good war.

If anyone in the United States were asked, "What is the best part about living in this country?," most people would answer "equality". The United States is built on and known for the equality among its citizens and is often referred to as the 'melting pot'. After reading Jonathan Kozol's, The Shame of the Nation, equality is nonexistent within the schools he has gone to, and has been employed through. With his travels, expert testimony and personal stories gathered from the people within the community and schools, he shows the exact opposite of equality. Minority schools being his main focus, he discusses the inequalities these students endure and truly opens up your eyes to just how awful these minority schools have it. Jonathan Kozol is successful in his writing of The Shame of the Nation, and makes himself a voice for these minority schools that are denied of their voices.

James M. McPherson, author of For Cause and Comrades, uses more than 25,000 unaltered letters and closely 250 private journals from Civil War soldiers—both Union and Confederate—in his attempt to explain what possessed these men to endure the roaring, gruesome chaos of war. What better way to express the motivation behind fighting than words straight from the pens of the men who were physically there and experienced the Civil War to its fullest? I personally feel as though McPherson succeeded in his explanation of the different driving forces that kept each man going during these difficult years of battle. The Wall Street Journal describes McPherson’s work as “an extraordinary book, full of fascinating details and moving self-portraits.”

In the book Night by Elie Wiesel there are many grave and precarious situations; looking at Chapter 5 we see some major milestones that determine Elie's life or death. One scene specifically made me slightly irritated. When Elie is in the infirmary he hears about the Red Army advancing; at first Elie has some trust in the Russians believing that they might free the sick Jews, but then the faceless man says to him, "All the patients will be finished off on the spot...And in one last swoop thrown into the furnaces." (pg.81) This makes Elie believe that he'll be killed, which is the one thing Elie doesn't want to happen.Later in the chapter, Elie escapes in excruciating pain - his foot bleeding. After Elie manages to escape what he thought was

Over 150 years, the Civil War had been the bloodiest war in the American history, also known as “The War Between the States” or “Brother Against Brother”, it was fought between the Union or the United States of America and the Confederate States of America. The war lasted four years from 1861 to 1865. What motivated these men to fight and what is the cause of the Civil War is a subject that many historians tried to find out.

The film Glory by Edward Zwick is one of the most well-known films of all time. The film itself is solely based upon the first formal unit of the Union Army during the American Civil War which consist of all African American men. They were essentially the very first unit of United States Colored Troops. They were formally known for their courageous attempts to and actions at Fort Wagner in 1863. The film is set in many different locations such as New York, Maryland, South Carolina and Massachusetts. In each of these different locations events took place that shaped our history. For example on November twenty seventh of 1862 Robert Shaw started to train soldiers. July eighteenth 1863 the Colonel Shaw and his troops attempted to take Fort Wagner, which didn’t succeed.

John Keegan describes his book, The Face of Battle, as "a personal attempt to catch a glimpse of the face of battle." This personal aspect that Keegan mentions is essential to his book and is excellently articulated, driving home his point. Keegan, who taught at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst for over 25 years, begins by acknowledging his uneasiness with the fact that even though he taught British cadets military history, "I have not been in a battle; not near one, nor heard one from afar, nor seen the aftermath . . . And I grow increasingly convinced that I have very little idea of what a battle can be like." Keegan is clear to state his proposition that almost all military history has functioned simply as a “battle piece” description in which one can see all the larger moving aspects followed by the outcome. However, this sort of recounting fails to acknowledge the personal side of war, the experience of battle. What really ensues when a cavalry unit meets an infantry unit? What are the vital features in determining whether soldiers stand and fight or turn and run?

The winner for the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for his book Battle Cry of Freedom, James M. McPherson, is a great american civil war historian. Born in Valley City, North Dakota on October 11, 1936 McPherson attended St. Peter High School. After graduation he attended Gustavus Adolphus College and in 1958 earned his bachelor’s degree with Magnum Cum Laude. He later attended John Hopkins University and earned his Ph.D. in 1963 and is now currently working as Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. McPherson is most well known for his work Battle Cry of Freedom, but he has wrote a number of other well known books including Tried By War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief. In 2009 James was a co-winner for the Lincoln Prize for this same book, and elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.