Preview

The Effects of War on Soldiers

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
813 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Effects of War on Soldiers
The Effects of War on Soldiers War is the most powerful threat we have on the earth today. War can accomplish a variety of things in a variety of ways and it is entirely up to the government to decide a country's war status. It is up to people that will never have to experience what they create, but what happens to the soldiers they send in to battle for them. For the soldiers they are stuck with an experience unlike any other known to man, stuck with memories and images of what it's like to be hunted by another man. Different people take different things away from war and are affected in different ways, but a change after a war is inevitable. In the stories The Red Convertible and Home Soil, the authors tell what its like for people that come back and what kind of change they experience. These stories tell of the psychological changes that take place in soldiers and how war affects personality and behavior. Home Soil is a story of a father and son, who were both soldiers in two different wars and tells of the changes that took place in them after their war experiences. Before going to war the son, Bohdan, was an outgoing young man. He was just a regular guy that liked to have fun, in high school he took up the bongos to try to make himself more popular
Hernandez 2 with the girls. He learned it by himself getting all of his basics of a record called "Lets Swing the Bongos". He took them both to war when he went, and both returned broken symbolic of the changes in his personality. His fathers points out that he now walks like a soldier with a stiff gait and that all his baby fat is gone leaving a tall lean soldier. Bob as he is called has also taken up smoking and smokes them in fear, as he would on the battlefield in fear of what's around the next corner or what could happen next. Bobs father however lives with a different experience of war. He grew up in Ukraine wanting to be a poet, but with little interest in his poems he began writing propaganda

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    4. SUBJECT: This book is written by a German veteran of World War I, who describes the German soldiers' extreme physical and mental stress during the war, and the detachment from civilian life felt by many of these soldiers upon returning home from the frontlines.…

    • 1103 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    At the beginning of his memoir, Beah illustrates how the civil war split many children, including himself, from their families causing affliction among them by showing how he and other children from his village were abandoned and forced to join the army—or even get captured by rebels. For example, Beah recalls the exact moments when the rebels attacked his village, “When the rebels finally came [into my village], I was cooking. The rice was done and the okra soup was almost ready when I heard a single gunshot that echoed through the town…My heart was beating faster than it ever had. Each gunshot seemed to cling to the beat of my heart…I thought about where my family was, whether I would be able to see them again, and wished that they were safe…

    • 239 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    “I am left with basically nothing. Too trapped in a war to be at peace, to damaged to be at war.” Army veteran Daniel Somers, talks about how when one is forced into war, they lose everything, including their mind, and are unable to get the peace they desire. This relates to the topic because the soldiers outlined in Tim O’Brien’s book, The Things They Carried, have gone through the feeling of being caught in a war while at the same time, dealing with psychological issues. This paper will go into detail about the soldiers struggle to retain their humanity and how specific traumatic events lead to the soldiers undoing. Events in the Vietnam War caused the soldiers immense psychological problems and forced them to give up their pre-war life.…

    • 1660 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    I have chosen three different types of media to share with you about how significant the effects or consequences of war can be. I have selected some pictures from Eddie Adams the article “After Duty, Dogs Suffer Like Soldiers” and the video: James Nachtwey’s Searing Photo’s of War. These three pieces of media will definitely astound you. You may never think that war could have such a dramatic effect on people or animals.…

    • 975 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    This book embodies all of the facets that go along with love and death, during a volatile time of war. O 'Brien captures the theme of emotional conflict and how strongly it affects soldiers in a brilliant way. By correlating mundane goods with intangibles like feelings and emotion, he successfully points out all of the angles of war that the lay person generally cannot comprehend. He compels the reader to understand not just the daily grind of war, but how the little things can bring important things in life into perspective. He digs under the surface of the tangible items to demonstrate a much greater meaning to these mens lives. In essence, the soldiers are defined by the things they…

    • 1236 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Imagine facing the horrors of a war at the young age of 19. In the real world as well as fictional novels, the Vietnam War was considered to be a war unlike any other. Many soldiers faced untold brutal challenges, and often wondered who the enemy really was. In many depicted pieces of literature such as Fallen Angels the fictional stories cannot begin to compare to the real traumatic ones. Research has shown that the traumatic circumstances have caused soldiers mental stress. Research shows the brutality that the soldiers of the Vietnam War went through, the novel Fallen Angels and the video series “Dear America: Letters Home” are very similar in this depiction, but also have slight differences.…

    • 954 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    War is a battle of not only the physical but also the psychological. In the text, All quiet on the western front, by Enrich Maria Remarque, and the poem Homecoming, by Bruce Dawe, our understanding is challenged through various representations of war such as innocence, srvivl and grief.…

    • 1195 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The idea of war brings up many questions about life and death, suffering, and consequences. While many people may see war as something that affects people as a whole, such as nations or a persecuted group, war further impacts every individual, whether or not they are directly involved. War limits freedoms and individualism, and in most cases people find themselves with less rights than during peacetime. People base their choices not on what they feel, and more on what they have to do to survive. Soldiers and civilians alike are influenced by war in different ways, however, these tie together when the overall effects of war are examined.…

    • 960 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tim O’Brien’s, The Things They Carried, contained different memoirs that truly bring the actions of war to life for the reader. Obrien’s book expresses the real feelings a solider faces while getting ready to go into war, in war, and post war. Through his vivid descriptions the reader is able to emphasize with the emotional burdens and stresses solders must go through while on duty. We are able to observe the different coping mechanisms solders must endure, including, cutting them selves off from reality and preoccupying their mind with other, sometimes meaningless, thoughts .The chapter that had the largest impact on myself was “Night Life.” For me this passage truly depicted not just the physical, but mental battle soldiers must go through; and the extreme measures taken to relive themselves from the intensity of battle.…

    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Interpretation of war and the relationship between soldiers and civilians are different when discussing World War 1 and the wars of today. Whether one is a soldier, spectator from far away, or a civilian watching it first hand, war cannot truly be comprehended and understood, unless it has been physically experienced. Erich Maria Remarque, a German World War I veteran, depicts the atrocities and brutalities of war in his novel, All Quiet on the Western Front. The gap between the expectations of soldiers and civilians are solidified through civilians’ inability to comprehend the impacts of war. This destruction of war has created such a profound impact on soldiers as they are now unable to formulate and comprehend their true identity as compared to their interpretation of who they were before the war.…

    • 1311 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the end, war is crucial and hard for many. No two people are alike when it comes to the effects of war. Some have horrible flashbacks imprinted on their minds that only very few can see through. In addition, others have physical wounds that everyone…

    • 611 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In her essay “Who needs College?” which appeared in Family Circle, Linda Lee states that many American parents regardless of their children performance or readiness are very obsessed with sending them to colleges or Universities.…

    • 489 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Home Soil

    • 630 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Home Soil is a story written by Irene Zabytko that takes place in Chicago during the Vietnam War. Bohdan, the narrator?s son, is the main character of the plot. His interaction with his father throughout the story proves that he is suppressing the pain that is within him. What led to this is the message that Zabytko intended for the reader; opportunities do not exist forever. Throughout the short story Bohdan displays regret, dwelling, and absolution as he realizes an opportunity has come and gone.…

    • 630 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The history of war is what many spend time reading about in textbooks. Few, however, experience war and all that it encompasses. David Leckie, a marine during World War II, uses his book, Helmet for My Pillow, to share with readers the truth of what it was like to be a soldier. Rather than skimming the surface of his time on Parris Island and the Pacific Islands, he goes into unmatched, excruciating detail; every trench dug, every shot fired, and every fallen soldier passed was recounted by Leckie. Setting this story apart from any other, the first-hand accounts of combat, unlikely descriptions of the day-to-day actions of the soldiers, and the heart that Leckie intertwines with each part of his story all combine to make this thought-provoking,…

    • 585 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When soldiers return from way they do not really know what do with themselves, many can not just back into working a typical 9-5 job behind a desk. 1 in 3 soldiers develop disorders, like PTSD, and need treatment before going back to regular life. But it is not just jobs that the soldiers struggle with, the things that interested the soldiers before the war seemed obsolete, or the towns that seemed so exciting and full of life seem dead, “The town seemed remote somehow. Sally was married, Max was drowned, and his father was watching baseball on national television.”(O’Brien, 139) The soldiers see that all…

    • 535 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics