:Response to War and Peace

The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

This poem by Rupert Brooke really meant something to me. I believe that being a soldier is an honor and I believe if you are a soldier there is no reason to disgrace that. When you are a soldier your defending your country and other countries in need of help. Wilfred Owens poem I believe is one of the most negative poems I have ever read, it is the reality of war, but he seems to be way to negative. I believe Brooke understood why he  fought and why he was at war. War is ugly and always will be but its how you approach it. This will always be an issue. My father is retired from the army, and when I read this poem I think of him. He used to tell me there is nothing more honorable than a U.S. Soldier. I look at what the United States of America has given me, and then I look at other places in the world, and I believe everyone should serve their country in some way. That doesn’t mean fighting, not everyone is made to fight. But it some way service should be paid. This is my opinion, my beliefs, my life on which I was raised.

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HOPE IS NOT A METHOD
Name: 1SG Troy Steward
Posting date: 1/25/08
Returned from: Afghanistan
Milblog url: bouhammer.com

HATE….ANGER….PRIDE….SADNESS….PRIDE…..SORROW…..FEAR…..PRIDE… These are the emotions that have been swirling through me like a f***ing tornado as my family took my oldest son to the airport and put him on a plane to start the journey that will take him into war. With every bad feeling came pride. How could I not be proud of this awesome young man? I watched him grow up, from playing with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to GI-Joes, to now being a GI Joe himself. I am the rock for my family, just as I am the rock for my soldiers that work for me. Being the “rock” is an honorable thing, but it also means not being able to waiver or always show the emotion that I have inside.

I have been on multiple sides of the deployment fence. I have been on the one where I am deploying, of course. I have watched my soldiers deploy without me. And now I am bidding my son goodbye as he gets ready to deploy into the horrors of war. It would be different if he was just deploying to a war that I had no knowledge of, and I could only relate the common things that are seen in all wars, but instead I am seeing him walk into the very place I just left. I know the good, bad and ugly of that place. Not just from when I was there, but from very recent experiences of a few weeks ago, as I am in constant communication with guys that are there fighting right now.

This blog entry reminds me of Wilfred Owen poem Dulce et Decorum. This blog reminded me of this poem because of how negative own is in his poem. Owen fought in WWI and at first thought he was there for a reason, then after experiencing the things he did he his view changed. “My friend, you would not tell with such high zest to children ardent for some desperate glory, the old lie” – Owen. As Owen didn’t agree neither does the father in this blog. Troy was in the military himself and now he had to watch his son be shipped off over seas. He was not very happy about it.

In the beginning of this blog, the first sentence can be considered a climax

HATE….ANGER….PRIDE….SADNESS….PRIDE…..SORROW…..FEAR…..PRIDE

Also there is a Anaphora

“I am the rock for my family, just as I am the rock for my soldiers that work for me. Being the “rock” is an honorable thing, but it also means not being able to waiver or always show the emotion that I have inside.”

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The three major news sources I have chosen are New York times, BBC News and Al Jazeera. I decided to chose the New York times because I believe it has a variety of articles about the Iraq war and the U.S. soldier in it. I chose the BBC news because I believe it provides trusted world news as well as local news, so maybe I will be able to find out about soldiers returning home from Iraq and there experience overseas. A favorite news source of mine is Al Jazeera, and the reason I decided to use this as a source is because it is a source from overseas.

Stars and Stripes is another source I want to use because it is only deals with the military and its issues. I will be focusing on all middle east coverage from these sources. My topic from Google news is “U.S. Soldiers in Iraq”. The miliblog I’m using is the Sandbox, because you get a variety of soldiers speaking their minds about life in war and there opinions about the war. I want to know what war is like because eventually I will join the military and I would like read about what the soldiers already overseas feel about being in the middle east.

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