Weapons of War
I found this statement in a article called United States Military Weapons of War. “There is no argument that the United States Military is the most powerful military in the World. We have achieved a level of technology in military weapons and equipment that no other nation on earth comes to”. This Statement made me think of the poem “Arms and the Boy” by Wilfred Owen.
Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade
How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
Blue with all malice, like a madman’s flash;
And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.
Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-leads
Which long to nuzzle in the hearts of lads,
Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth,
Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death.
For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple.
There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple;
And God will grow no talons at his heels,
Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls.
After reading this I ask myself can man handle these weapons that we have created? When talking about Arms in Owens poem I believe he is saying that human are given these weapons but humans don’t understand them. The boy represents the youth of war. And we give these weapons to young boys who are not ready to use these weapons. The boys teeth is not for biting but for laughing, the boy has no claws, he is not a mean creature. In a way I believe Owen states God also doesn’t want us using these weapons he did not create. Even though Owen wrote this in WWI, it shows his insight of events and technology that is occurring today. Technology is growing and Owen knew this and he believes that soldiers which is the “Boy” are not ready to use these weapons.
2 Comments
Wilfred Owen has my complete respect as a writer of poetry and representing authority on war. I think what Owen was getting at in that poem is that people are like school children. We make these things with the sole purpose of destruction, and like children we do not know what this means. Not only that but when we make things which sole purpose is to harm and hurt and kill it only encourages people to keep acting in the same way. As a matter of fact it only escalates it. In breading more and more weapons we are also breading more and more violence, I think this comes out in the passage “Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-leads.”
It is as if he is inferring that we follow our bullets blindly. They have no sight, they only go where we place them, so we should be able to stop fighting as we do, but our boys are behind the guns following those blind bullets. I also like how he makes it clear that these bullets are made with malice, and they crave only destruction. I think it was interesting how he gave all of the weapons personality’s that make them sound like tools of madmen who care for nothing.
I think that Owen had accurate feelings about the technology of war not being made for the young men. I think that weapons are necessary at least as an image of power and strength, but I don’t think weapons will ever “go away.” Many people in the World Wars were very young, and I don’t think they were ready to use the weapons they were given.
I don’t think today’s soldiers think about the weapons they use as being “too big” for them, or that they are not ready to use them. I hope that they are comfortable with them, and learn to use them properly, both for their safety and the safety of the people they are protecting.