Equality in War

Tom Waits - The Day After Tomorrow

     Tom Waits was born in Pomona, California on December 7, 1949. Tom Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits’ gritty voice has put a dissimilar sound on jazz, blues, and rock music around the world. His songs tell the tales of “seedy” and sometimes “grotesque” characters and places. Although his music is not particularly liked by everyone, Waits still has a loyal band of followers to support his every move. Earlier this year, Waits was put at the top of the list for Rolling Stone’s “Top 25 Underappreciated Artists.” Tom Waits wrote one of his most influential albums “Real Gone” in 2004. The album’s focus was a collection of anti-war songs.



     In the song “Day After Tomorrow” I think that Waits is singing about the point of view of a soldier in battle. The soldier is writing a letter back home with big hopes of getting to come within’ the next few weeks. While the soldier is at war, he turns twenty-one. During this point in his life and time that he has served for his country, he has become very humble. The soldier is really starting to miss the little things from back home that he took for granted in his home town of Rockford, Illinois. Deployed soldiers begin to have many mental issues once they go overseas because, they suffer from so much trauma, fatigue, and homesickness. These issues return home with many of the men and affect their everyday lives tremendously. I strongly believe that this is what is happening to this particular man that is writing back to his family. This soldier seems very broken by the war and aches for Rockford, Illinois.

     The Government tells soldiers that they are fighting for our country, and the civilians “freedom” but according to “Day After Tomorrow,” this soldier is just “fighting for his life.” I could definitely agree with this soldier writing the letter because as much as I love my country, the only thoughts that would be going through my mind would be if I was coming home alive, or in a wooden box. Fighting for my life would definitely be a huge factor in fighting in any war.

     This song that Tom Waits has written is describing a soldiers experience at war and the heavy thoughts he has to carry around with him on a daily basis. Throughout the song, Waits sings about the soldier’s letter and put it into evident detail how much the soldier longs for his family and hometown. The soldier states how much he misses the “little things in life” the most, “shoveling snow” and “raking leaves.” The soldier is writing to his family about how he is really “fighting for his life” and nothing else while he is deployed. The man in Tom Waits’ song is really struggling mentally with everything he has to go through overseas and how much Rockford, Illinois is calling him back home.

Infectious Disease of Boredom in War Zones

David Axe, a war correspondent for C-SPAN, The Washington Times and BBC, has made a career for himself by following wars, from arms-dealer trade shows, to refugee camps and even to the literal battlefields of Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, East Timor and Somalia. The more I get into reading Axe’s graphic novel, War is Boring, the more I realize that it is not about the places he goes but more about how war changes him after he repeatedly witnesses it.

Axe structures War is Boring as a series of recollections to his driver, Adrian Djimdim, as they travel to a camp for refugees of the Darfur conflict in Chad. Axe describes the Unglamourous process of hunting down juicy stories in conflict zones that are, as the title has it, boring. As a journalist, Axe, spends a lot of his time waiting, and a lot more time trying to get to difficult places on a low budget. He does not bother with the minor details or the routine along with it, but anyone with eyes can see that the daily ins and outs of war are boring for him. So much so, that when fighting does break out it could almost come as a relief to him. This brings me to the question: why does Axe continue to go back to war if he thinks it is boring?

David Axe in Somalia

At times, Axe finds himself being bored with the war despite the fact that the war is not boring at all , due to battles that are constantly taking place. In fact, he seems quicker to be, “bored with the stale beers and mendacious conversations he encounters during his trips back to the U.S.” The best example of this is in the panel where Axe’s colleague approaches him in a bar in D.C. and asks, “How was Afghanistan?” To which Axe replies, “Awesome, dude.” Axe got annoyed with people like his colleague and people who criticize wars that they think they know everything about but in reality are too cowardly to go see for themselves.

 
While he portrays himself as a war junkie in the novel, “Axe doesn't seem to get a thrill from war, it’s just that a direct attempt on his life is the only thing that makes him feel alive.” At the beginning, war coverage is more of a fix of excitement. But by the end of the novel Axe’s answer has changed. He wants to do something for people other than himself. David  used, “because Chad matters,” as his motivation to do the right thing . In east Timor, an elderly man offers Axe information for money, for the sole reason that the man was “hungry.” Axe replied back, “There are millions of you, and you’re all hungry. How am I supposed to fix that?” Axe's encounter with the man at the bar made him question, “Had war chosen me, or had I chosen it? And what did that say about me?” Axe had a sudden change of heart with the elderly man and ended up giving him money. No, he would not be able to help everyone in need but by helping at least one person he was already off to a better start.

Axe thought that going to Chad to shed light on Darfur would be the answer to all of his problems and to finally put others’ needs ahead of his own. But good intentions are not enough sometimes. His pure motives could merely be entering him into the same cycle of addiction, an excuse for the death wish that he openly admits to. He still finds the brutality of Chad just as disillusioning and boring as any other country he has visited. Axe goes back to war zones, trying to regain his sense of humanity, to care, to feel, to sacrifice, to connect, and he fails. Maybe he is failing though because he keeps doing what he had always been doing. Axe came to value these things too late. “I don’t feel much anymore,. What pleasure I used to take in everyday things was replaced with a constant, low-grade anger...Mostly anger at myself for thinking that going off to war would make me smarter,sexier, and happier.” You can gain a multitude of things from his story. We can’t turn away from Axe’s view of the world, but we also do not have to except the world as it is now.

The Real Drug of War

In Chris Hedges’ article “War is a Force That Gives us Meaning” he stated, “The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug.” In the 2008 film The Hurt Locker, Sergeant William James, accompanied by Sergeant JT Sanborn and Specialist Owen Eldridge, make up an elite squad of army bomb technicians that take on dangerous tasks dismantling planted IEDs (improvised explosive devices). Every second spent dismantling a bomb is another second spent flirting with death. While disarming the bombs the soldiers are surrounded by Iraq civilians watching from balconies and doorways, never knowing if the bystanders created the bombs or were in charge of setting them off.

Most war movies portray soldiers as constant fighting machines that never have any down time or come across any personal struggles. The Hurt Locker on the other hand does an excellent job of depicting the daily in between scenes that soldiers have to go through. In the film Eldridge is a bundle of nerves and is ashamed of his own fears. After the suicide bombing Sanborn breaks down to James about how he just wants to survive and return home and have a son. James is an adrenaline junkie with a fear of not being good at anything else but disarming bombs. This brings me to the question: does normal life compete with the potent drug of war?

Chris Hedges once said,“Fighting in the war gives soldiers purpose, meaning and a reason for living.” Normal life cannot compete with the potent drug of war. Soldiers will always wish they were still deployed because everyday tasks at home seem much harder and did not even close to the assignments given to them while at war. In the article “The Destruction of the Hurt Locker” I read that “ The most profound, true, and real scenes of The Hurt Locker are when James returns home. At the grocery store, staring at the wide colorful swath of cereal boxes aligning the aisle, left with all these choices that are so trivial. It’s the first time in the movie we see so many colors. And that’s how it feels coming back to the states.” When it comes down to it the choice between which cereals to choose from and the decision of choosing which wire to cut to detonate a bomb literally have no meaning to each other.

Returning home for James was so hard because once he was home he felt like he no longer had a purpose in the world. The scene where he is playing with his son is one of the best scenes that help to describe the way of war. He comments about his son’s love for everything, but as he gets older he will come to love less and less. James confesses to his son that he only loves one thing now. 

To soldiers war is not an addiction, it was a way of life. If they were not fighting for something or given tasks on a daily basis, then they had nothing to live for. James re-deployed because of his love for the job. He yearned to have a purpose in life again. He did not care about dying he simply wanted to feed his hunger of being a bomb technician. But was returning to war a selfish decision? After all, he was leaving his wife and son at home to worry and live without him day in and day out. He chooses to satisfy his drug rather than sacrifice his love for war in order to be apart of his young son's life. Is the drug really worth his son growing up without a father? It is a very hard decision to make because America needs soldiers and doesn't discriminate against a "family man." But William Prochnau quoted in his novel “Once Upon a Distant War”, Addictions destroy, junkies usually die, and the war always wins.”

"The Ignorant War"

     The Battle of Mogadishu, Somalia turned into to what was supposed to be a brief mission of capturing warlord, General Aidid into one of the United States' biggest war-related failures. The article Battle of Mogadishu states "By the end of the fighting between the U.S. and the Somalian militia, U.S. casualties numbered 73 wounded, 18 dead, and one pilot taken prisoner."

      T.S. Eliot once said, "All our ignorance brings us nearer to death." The U.S. greatly underestimated their Somalian opponents, leading to many unnecessary casualties. Could these casualties have been avoided?

     On October 3, 1993, delta forces were given the mission to enter and conquer warlord, General Aidid. The movie "Black Hawk Down," portrayed that the danger associated with the mission was heavily downplayed by the U.S. soldiers, considering that it was routine and would take less than an hour to complete. The soldiers thought that they had this mission under control and that the Somalian soldiers were were not capable of coming up with a tactile plan against them. But Somalians had an advantage to the attack and could frequently catch the U.S. off guard. In the article Battle of Mogadishu, citizens "were fighting on familiar ground and leaders could muster an army of several an army of several thousand men and boys in short order."

     Unprepared Forces During Initial Campaigns stated "Standard operating procedures were ignored as soldiers ignored packing lists in order to lessen their load and carry more ammunition." Soldiers were advised to leave behind important items such as extra water and night vision goggles. In the movie "Black Hawk Down," soldiers decide to leave their steel plate from their Kevlar body armor behind to help lighten the load as well. The soldiers chose to sacrifice their protection over maneuverability. In the end they find themselves in the middle of heavy fire-fight and many suffered injuries that could have been prevented with their extra protection.

     U.S. forces were unprepared for the battle of Mogadishu. They lacked a well thought out plan and failed to carry all of their necessary supplies with them. Just when the mission was going according to plan, two black hawks were shot down. The mission quickly turned into a matter of continuing to carry out the mission and crucial search and rescue. The U.S. was quickly outnumbered and ill equipped for long term fighting. The helicopters were being heavily approached by the civilian militia and the survivors of the crash were not able to hold off the mass crowds alone.

     To answer this question: Could the casualties have been avoided? In my opinion the answer is yes. U.S. casualties could have been avoided if they did not underestimate the Somalian militia like they did and if they would have better prepared for the mission.

The Media's Impact on Society During the Vietnam War

Marshall McLuhan

     Marshall McLuhan once said, "Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America, not on the battle fields of Vietnam." The United States had fought in many wars prior to Vietnam, but this was the first war to ever be televised to the American people. Unlike wars that are reported today, with an abundance of government interference, the Vietnam War was televised with hardly any government interference at all. Due to new technologies, the press was now capable of showing images of wounded American soldiers, and also publishing video reports straight from the battlefield. Americans back home could now see the gruesome actions happening in Vietnam, because of this what impact did media have on society during the Vietnam War? 
     
     The media had a huge impact on society during Vietnam. The disturbing imagery of dead and critically wounded women, children, and elderly shaped people's opinions on the war. American citizens were outraged by what they were seeing on television and reading in the newspapers.

     While reading a post called, "The Media and the Vietnam War, Truthful or Deceptive?" I was shocked at the fact that the media was allowed to film almost anywhere they wanted to during Vietnam. This led the media to "film ugly battles and bombings from up close, and increased the level of shocking imagery incredibly." In the essay, it says that "to reach this goal many recorded material was edited to increase the intensity of the film or photo." Since media during Vietnam lacked government interference, it allowed for them to publish whatever they desired no matter how much of it was fake or a lie. 


     One of the most horrifying things to come out to the public about Vietnam were the Pentagon Papers. The Pentagon Papers "revealed that the Harry S. Truman administration gave military aid to France in its colonial war against the communist-led Viet Minh, thus directly involving the United States in Vietnam; that in 1954 Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower decided to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam and to undermine the new communist regime of North Vietnam; that Pres. John F. Kennedy transformed the policy of “limited-risk gamble” that he had inherited into a policy of “broad commitment”; that Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson intensified covert warfare against North Vietnam and began planning to wage overt war in 1964, a full year before the depth of U.S. involvement was publicly revealed; and that Johnson ordered the bombing of North Vietnam in 1965 despite the judgment of the U.S. intelligence community that it would not cause the North Vietnamese to cease their support of the Viet Cong insurgency in South Vietnam." The author said, "the Pentagon Papers once again shocked the world about the systematic lies and deception from the presidents and their governments, however almost no actions were taken, mainly because the reports were from the era 1945-1967 and these files were only published in 1971." The Pentagon wanted to keep everything under the radar in order to keep the reputations of the soldiers in good terms with the American people back home. The release of the Pentagon Papers enraged Americans even more about the war and caused civilians to protest.

      Media quickly began to follow the public opinion of the war, and started to report on anti-war protests instead of actually covering the war itself. The media impacted society drastically during Vietnam because, it was the first televised war and the amount of images and videos the public got to see shaped the public's opinion of the entire Vietnam war. 
   

About Me

in front of my new dorm

My name is Hannah Hurst and I am a Freshman at Jacksonville State University. Recently I became a member of the Zeta Psi chapter of Zeta Tau Alpha Fraternity. I couldn't be happier with the 83 friends/sisters that God has put into my life. I am from the cutest town ever Helena, Alabama just right outside of Birmingham. I attended Pelham High School and was involved in numerous clubs and organizations. Like most girls, I cheered in high school. According to friends I have always been considered "awkward" but i'd like to think of myself not awkward, just adorable. In my spare time I love recreating Pinterest crafts, hiking, drooling over clothes I can't afford, and religiously watching Netflix. I created this blog for English class purposes, but I really hope that you enjoy my work and continue to keep reading!
         
 xo,
 Hannah