Combat Is Not Costless Essay Example
Killian Joyce Ngalibika Kalamba
EN 101/A
Professor Marsha Fausti
09/27/2012
Combat is not costless
At first, this essay opened my eyes on the fact that the counterpart soldiers have to pay
for protecting their country is often more than losses of their lives; but now, after further
analysis, I realized that the survivors also had to pay a price for having fought for what
they believe in.
In the book excerpt “Combat High,” author Sebastian Junger points out both the costs
of a combat which took place in front of his eyes, and the ones of war in general. His
focus is not to let us know how much money wars or combat cost to governments and
politics, but to give us a sense of what combat is like as well as a sense of the
psychological and social effects of such armed fights on soldiers, and a sense of the Post-
war re-adjustment the main characters of combat have to go trough. Throughout his
essay, Junger gives a brief description of combat first, before analyzing the cheers and
how much the soldiers’ personality had been broken down. This analysis led him to
recognize both the obvious costs of war(such as the number of deaths), and the vaguer
ones(the effects of this hostile environment on soldiers).
In this attempt to bring a valley of the Kunar province(Afghanistan) under military
control, “nearly 50 soldiers have died carrying out” the orders given by society. In fact,
society assigned these men to this dangerous task, and they blindly followed
orders, engaging themselves in this combat which was obviously going to be costly.
Naturally, the first image that comes into people’s mind when they think about combat,
war or armed fights in general, is death. When people use their firepower against one
another, losses of lives, important or not(depending on the person interpreting the
numbers), always occur. This combat wasn’t an exception because according to the
EN 101/A
Professor Marsha Fausti
09/27/2012
Combat is not costless
At first, this essay opened my eyes on the fact that the counterpart soldiers have to pay
for protecting their country is often more than losses of their lives; but now, after further
analysis, I realized that the survivors also had to pay a price for having fought for what
they believe in.
In the book excerpt “Combat High,” author Sebastian Junger points out both the costs
of a combat which took place in front of his eyes, and the ones of war in general. His
focus is not to let us know how much money wars or combat cost to governments and
politics, but to give us a sense of what combat is like as well as a sense of the
psychological and social effects of such armed fights on soldiers, and a sense of the Post-
war re-adjustment the main characters of combat have to go trough. Throughout his
essay, Junger gives a brief description of combat first, before analyzing the cheers and
how much the soldiers’ personality had been broken down. This analysis led him to
recognize both the obvious costs of war(such as the number of deaths), and the vaguer
ones(the effects of this hostile environment on soldiers).
In this attempt to bring a valley of the Kunar province(Afghanistan) under military
control, “nearly 50 soldiers have died carrying out” the orders given by society. In fact,
society assigned these men to this dangerous task, and they blindly followed
orders, engaging themselves in this combat which was obviously going to be costly.
Naturally, the first image that comes into people’s mind when they think about combat,
war or armed fights in general, is death. When people use their firepower against one
another, losses of lives, important or not(depending on the person interpreting the
numbers), always occur. This combat wasn’t an exception because according to the