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.