Option 2 By Amber Obrien
War is profusely damaging to direct combatants and is just as damaging to those affected indirectly. Demonstrated by the novel ‘Triage’ by Scott Anderson, indirect involvement in war can cause you to loose connection to life, to your loved ones and also to yourself.
Witnessing the devastating effect of war can sometimes cause a disconnection to life. In the novel Mark, a war photographer, is exposed to some very confronting and damaging sights. After traveling to Kurdistan Mark became “detached, but also nervous, on edge.” Mark had returned with some physical injuries, a slight limp but this became progressively worse despite his healing because “the physical injury [was] now being complicated by some kind of psychosomatic reaction.” Not only did this psychosomatic reaction cause a physical decrease but it also caused a decrease in Marks connection to life. While socializing with his friends “Marks reactions were out of sync with the others because he was copying them. He wasn’t having any of his own emotions.” Again Mark showed a lack of emotion when later “a single sob escaped from his throat…it was so unconnected to any feeling, that afterward Mark could almost believe he imagined it.” Emotions are crucial part of life, they help us understand others, make decisions, and avoid danger. Marks inability to have emotion shows his direct disconnection to life due to seeing the trauma that war is. Being disconnected to life causes you to become a mindless void equally as painful and damaging as the physical or emotional injuries that a man might obtain fighting in the war.
Having loved ones involved in war can caused you to lose them both physically and emotionally. Elena started to lose her partner Mark emotionally after the funeral of another war photographer. “After three years of this, she wanted a life free of fear, free of the strategies she devised to make it all bearable,” and Mark became