Poetry Project
These Wars
Veteran´s History Project
These Wars
I saw…
The fighting in the streets--
bullets sending wasps
of
glass
skittering,
a
musical destruction.
(Peek around a corner, only to
be blown up
from behind)
fighting where
there should be children swinging,
laughing--
A fallen soldier stares
through
me, the eyes filled with
a burned and
disfigured sadness.
***
I see now
the fighting in the streets.
Children still peeking
around corners
watching movies
increasingly rated downward
R,
PG-13, PG
and no one pays much attention
to what they’re feeding
their
subconscious
anyway.
As long as it’s exciting--
and
our souls corrupt under
a burned and disfigured sadness.
***
I realize
This is a society that has increasingly
been infiltrated
by the most dangerous weapon:
People
Filled
With
Apathy.
Not caring about
The
fighting
Anger
Sadness
It is no small wonder
with
news raining
hailstones
of hatred
Developed nations
are
so much more likely
to explode from
within,
because
we are all filled
with this burned and disfigured sadness.
***
We all have come from a land
of urban warfare
where violence
is rampant,
where bombs fall,
shooters dart in
and out of once-houses,
and acrid smoke
chokes the populace.
And now,
We live in a land now where free speech
is encouraged,
but to speak freely is to be ostracized.
Here,
children watch as prejudice spreads,
blood
drips down the inside of the screen and
pools
on the floors of their brains.
Violence is allowed, accepted, and now,
We live violence,
bombs
dropping in our living room
political debates
still filling
the air with that acrid smoke
that chokes and cloaks us
as we hide away
that
burned
and disfigured
sadness.
Artist Statement
This poem is
intended as a commentary on the parallels of modern society and urban
warfare. I was inspired by the movie
“Enemy at the Gates”, where there is this war going on for Stalingrad. This was
the first seed of the idea that there are little connections to be drawn
between how we live today, and the time where our houses became
battlegrounds. I was especially inspired
by that thought, that houses once were, and still are, battlegrounds, although
nowadays, its “a war going on for your mind”, rather than an outright attempt
on your life. I thought that drawing comparisons
between these two concepts would make for a very rich poem. All of these concepts led to the poem that I
put together here. I represented the
idea of urban warfare in the first stanza, and then linked it to the idea of
oppression and structural violence in the next three stanzas.
Initially, I
had placed the concepts in different stanzas, to make sure that the differences
were emphasized. However, I soon
realized that it was more important to show where they overlapped rather than
where they differed for the message of my poem.
I had also gotten quite a bit of feedback that said that people didn’t
understand how the two things were connected, and they didn’t understand the
relevance of much of what I said. In
response to this feedback, I chose to write a final stanza, reflecting the true
connections, and incorporating the two ideas in the same flow of words. This choice has greatly served the message of
the poem, and I am much happier with the resulting poem as it stands now.
I structured
my poem to affect the reader’s flow. I
didn’t want to do this through a rhyme and meter scheme, because I felt that
was too overt. I also feel that it
brings a different emotional tone to the poem than I would like because of the
almost childish feel it carries. Rhyme
and meter do have their place, but in this case I decided instead to do a more
free verse poem. I was inspired by the
poem “Now I Become Myself” by May Sarton.
It holds a very interesting style of free verse, which I was inspired
by, but it also holds a few unusual punctuation usages that I chose to apply in
my poem to enhance the pacing for the reader.
For example, in this section she uses parenthesis, dashes, and quotes to
enhance the message of the poem: “crying a warning,/ "Hurry, you will
be dead before--"/(What? Before you reach the morning?/ Or the end of the
poem is clear?/Or love safe in the walled city?)”. This free verse style serves
the message and feeling of the poem much better and also was a form with which
I was more comfortable. The spacing and
punctuation was used to direct the reader in the flow of the poem, so that the
parts that were more important were emphasized.
I had some
difficulty determining how the best way to present my poem was. I had to balance the often contradictory
needs of the best mode of presentation for the poem and the ability I had to
create what I envisioned. I really
admired the things that some people had done with Adobe After Effects. However, after much thought on the idea, I
decided that I would be unlikely to be able to pull off the massive amounts of
technical skill required in this program.
I then saw a poem by D'Vaughn McCrae
called “Peace is Not a T-shirt”. They
had a sequence of images and word that fit the poem and emphasized different
pieces of them. They used different
slides to emphasize and add images to certain words, which causes the reader to
comprehend better the message of the poem.
I thought that this was an excellent compromise between where my skills
are and how to best represent my poem.
This project overall has been a lot of work, but has also been very
rewarding in how it makes me think about the world.
Veteran´s History Project
For this project, our task was to interview a veteran of the Vietnam War. We were then supposed to send that in to the Library of Congress for their veteran´s history project. While designing interview questions and coordinating with our veteran, we also learned about the history of the Vietnam war from the end of WWII to the end of the Vietnam war. We took this background information as well as nine primary source documents and also attempted to write a true history of the Gulf of Tonkin in an in-class essay.
Project Reflection
1. How did the interview change or affirm your perspective of the truth of war?
After the truth of war project, our whole class had their own takes on what the truth of war was. However, this interview gave me so much of a deeper perspective on what war was, and I really feel that doing this interview as part of the previous project would have added so much more information and depth to the resulting essay and project. This interview brings the war back to a personal level, and it really helps in connecting to the project. It definitely reinforced my truth that I already had formed, but it added so much more depth and emotion that it makes our past efforts look sad.
2. What was the most interesting thing you learned in your veteran interview?
Probably the two most interesting responses our veteran gave in his interview were to the questions “Was the training you received sufficient?” and “What lessons did you learn from the war?” He talked a lot about how nothing can prepare you for the horror of taking another human’s life, and how even though the US military was the most well trained military at this time, there is no sufficient training for war. His biggest lesson that he learned from the war was that of love. He said that the bonds that he formed during the war are deeper than those formed in normal society. The person next to you was your survival, and you were theirs. I really found it engaging to listen to his opinions and take-aways from his experiences, because they’re uniquely his.
3. As a historian how could you use your veteran interview?
The veteran interview would be valuable as emotional context for events after the Vietnam War. It gives you a perception of the returning soldier’s mindset following the war. Because the author of this interview actually experienced the war and its aftermath, they are a very reliable source for these specific events. Their memories of actual events may not be as reliable as other sources, but their emotional reactions are very important.
4. What was the most valuable part of the process during this project?
I feel that the most valuable part of the process was being able to attach personal experiences and emotions to abstract concept. War is a hard topic, and people generally try to put on armor to distance them from what they are learning. But for what they are learning to have a permanent lasting impression, it must affect you deeply, and that is what you will remember. That is why the actual interview was the most t valuable part of the project for me. It brought the reality back into the project.
The Gulf of Tonkin: Justified or not?
Despite the cries from the USA that the attack of the USS Maddox was unprovoked, the evidence points to a provoked and entirely justifiable retaliation by the North Vietnamese to the acts of sabotage done to them by the United States government.
The general atmosphere in the United States at this point, guided by the government, was that our ship had just been attacked viciously and without provocation in neutral waters near North Vietnam. This public opinion was largely shaped by the statements released from the White House dealing with the incident. As it is stated in the introduction of Document 3, “[…] the White House began a public campaign arguing that the attack was ‘unprovoked’.” This campaign appears to have taken hold very quickly in the media of the United States, as evidenced by the interview with the Secretary of State Dean Rusk, where the interviewer asks him, “What explanation, then, can you come up with for this unprovoked attack?”(Document 2). This question was most likely motivated by the information that they were getting from their government. Obviously, this whole concept of innocence was already well ingrained in the public’s eye, just three days after the event. They had accepted the news provided by the government, possibly because it was their only information source for war news. This, of course gives the government huge amounts of power over their people, if they are the only ones with the war news, and can filter it as they see fit. And the government didn’t hesitate to use this power to achieve what they thought was necessary in Vietnam.
The United States was poised, just waiting for an event like this to excuse the start of a war. In one of the documents declassified by or leaked from the foreign relations, they are discussing the tactical advantages of attacking North Vietnam: “We want a scream from them [North Vietnam] that they had been hit by something from our side. I would not object if they blamed us. They could prove nothing.”(Document 8). The tone of this document is rather taunting. Is it hard to draw the conclusion that the attack was indeed provoked, given the conclusions that this document comes to about the need to put North Vietnam in their place? In addition, the date of this document places it just two months before the retaliation of North Vietnam on the USS Maddox, which gives us the idea that the political climate in the months leading up to the attack was already primed for war and provocation. This evidence is also corroborated by the recorded conversation between President Johnson and Robert Anderson: “There have been some covert operations in that area that we have been carrying on--blowing up some bridges and things of that kind, roads and so forth. So I imagine they wanted to put a stop to it.”(Document 3) This shows us that the idea of provoking Vietnam did indeed come to fruition, as shown in Document 3, which was recorded the day after the attack.
But what really happened in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 2, 1964? The USS Maddox was indeed ambushed, but it was an insignificant attack, and entirely justified from the position of the North Vietnamese’s position. Captain Herrick, the commander of the USS Maddox, sent several cables, among them one stating “Details of action present a confusing picture although certain that the original ambush was bona fide.” (Document 7) What he says clearly is that there was a definite ambush; however, the actual extent of the attack falls under definite scrutiny here because of the fact that the captain was unsure himself. We have already established that the attack was provoked, but what we have yet to determine is the severity of the attack. Judging from the perspective of the captain, we can assume that this attack was not harsh. In addition, in one of his later cables he states “the first boat to close the Maddox probably launched a torpedo at the Maddox which was heard but not seen. All subsequent torpedo reports are doubtful in that it is suspected that sonarman was hearing ship’s own propeller beat”(Document 7) Here we find the final remnants of the story. From these various sources we can determine that the attack was a mild ambush in retaliation for the provocation supplied by the United States. Now, what remains in question is the decision to go to war based on this sole incident.
The United States government used the attack of the USS Maddox to justify war in the eyes of its citizens. However, given the fact that this attack was mild as well as provoked, we are forced to come to the conclusion that this attack was used as an excuse, and that draws the entire war into question. The United States government used the American public’s need for revenge for an attack that wasn’t even severe, and channeled that into a needless war against North Vietnam, but more importantly, against Communism. If a country cannot tell its own people the truth of whatever war we are fighting because they would disagree on its necessity, then maybe we shouldn’t be fighting that war. The Gulf of Tonkin was simply a tool to get America involved in the war. For example, it was the reason Congress Passed the Tonkin resolution, which stated in it “[…]naval units of the Communist regime in Vietnam,[…] have deliberately and repeatedly attacked United states naval vessels lawfully present in international waters,[…]”(Document 1) Without the attack of the USS Maddox, the President could not have gained the power to perform military acts without the approval of congress. The Gulf of Tonkin Event was a pivot point for the whole war, and rightfully should not have been used for justification of war actions. This event was blown wildly out of proportion, and a misjudgment on the USA’s part led to the deaths of thousands.
The Truth of War
To the Ones Who Stayed Behind
Where were you?
When bombs were flying and the dead lay
Scattered like grains of sand,
Given no more consideration than dust,
Lost and forgotten on the bookshelf-
Where were you?
When lives were forfeited for the sake of land,
A body enriching every yard of soil gained
The earth bearing the terrible baptism.
Now, after quiet has hung
Leaden in the air
For a thousand years worth of moments,
Part of the veil of smoke
Of letters, words, memories of that war
Weaving shadows between you and me,
You left me
Next to the comrades that lie dead
Next to the gun,
That in my hands, became
God without discretion-
Now you offer help?
Too little, too late.
Society´s Misperception: A Soldier’s Real Truth of War
War is a constant feature in human societies. It has been playing a part in the development of our culture. But do we truly understand the effect that war has on those whose lives it touches? War puts the human in a situation that not many people have to deal with, so those who have experienced it are eternally changed in a way that everyone else is unable to comprehend. This problem has become more important as technology has increased in proficiency and there are new weapons with massive psychological affects in the modern wars, such as tanks and poison gas. Modern war has also brought us closer to being able to understand the plight of the modern soldier, with a freer exchange of information as well as the introduction of civilian targeting in WWII. This increases the number of people who could understand what a soldier has been through, and makes it possible for people to understand the predicament of the soldier. But as the world has increased in ability to understand, the morality of war has also gotten murkier. In WWII it became all right to bomb disconnected citizens, condemning cities of people to death without trial. These changes in the morality of war have made this a far foggier subject than before. It is important that we discover the united truth of war for our country, because it affects the mechanisms as well as the underlying morality of our society. War is a whirlwind of death and destruction, but the inner turmoil of those affected is unseen by humanity until it is too late.
War originates deep within the collective mind of humanity. It hails from the beginnings of a country, as Barbara Ehrenreich discusses in her article “The Roots of War”: “War begets war and shapes human societies as it does so.”(Ehrenreich) This quote is basically stating that a society can be changed or created out of a warlike environment, because it is built with those predispositions already in place. Our society was created out of a revolution, which means that it is more susceptible to war. This was especially true for the countries of Europe after WW1. They had been completely remade after the First World War, and many were struggling to pull out of a massive depression. This makes them more susceptible to war. However, even if there are natural predilections of a society to become war-like, there still needs to be a catalyst for this movement. While there are beginnings of the thoughts of war, there still needs to be a reason cited by the government and leader figures for it to gain steam. Several of the reasons cited include religion, imperialism, outside threats, proof of power and control, resources, and the economy. For example, Hitler used war to get the country back on track by revitalizing the economy with war production jobs. All of these factors add up to equal how leaders and governments justify war in their own eyes as well as their citizens’. These justifications are unable to stand in the face of the reality of war. Nothing can justify the lack of morality and fairness in war.
Leaders think that they see all facets of a problem, as well as its moral issues, but they are no better than children. They do not understand the consequences and they are as susceptible to human mistakes as anyone else. Leaders are prone to the fallibilities of humanity, as is evidenced by a quote from All Quiet on the Western Front: “[…] every full-grown emperor requires at least one war, otherwise he would not become famous.”(Remarque 206). This quote was taken from the section in the book where Paul and his friends are discussing why the war is happening. They are unable to come up with a reason, other than the leaders want to be famous. It casts a slightly pathetic light on the motivations and decisions made by the government, the fact that these men cannot come up with a better reason than fame to justify this war. But it does emphasize the fact that leaders do not always act for purely noble reasons, even if they think they do. Additional evidence for the fallibility of humans in general is this memo from Churchill to General Ismay, in response to the bombing of Dresden: “I am of the opinion that military objectives must henceforth be more strictly studied in our own interests than that of the enemy.” (Great Britain) This is a change from before the bombing, when he had supported the attack. This change of heart illustrates a point that I feel is an important one to remember: no human is perfect. And if we can understand the viewpoint of the leader, things will go much easier for us. My impression of the leader is that they believe that war is a necessary foreign policy to serve their country in the best way possible. They see the justifications and believe in the necessity of their actions. However, without the perspective of the true horrors of war, they are not able to make an impartial decision. Despite the fact that the leader is likely to not have an entirely unbiased viewpoint, they are able to bring an entire society around to their type of thinking.
In a society that is proud of its ability to think freely, it is odd that our whole idea of war can be manipulated by the propaganda artists of the government. This method is effective on the society, as evidenced by this quote from All Quiet on the Western Front: “[…] at that time even one’s parents were ready with the word ‘coward’; no one had the vaguest idea what we were in for.”(Remarque 11) This quote is written from the perspective of Paul, who is reacting to his enlistment and discussing how the society’s pressures affected those of his generation. It is really odd that the families of young men would not only support their troops, but actually would actually put lots of pressure on their sons, husbands, and fathers to go to what became hell. In chapter 1 of All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul says, “[…] Kantorek gave us long lectures until the whole of our class went, under his shepherding, to the district commandant and volunteered.”(Remarque 11). This is showing how the students are betrayed by those authority figures that they trust. The pressure exerted on the citizens to support their country is truly unfair to these men. But it is not the fault of the citizens that they feel the way they do, for they are just being manipulated by their countries to believe that war is a heroic endeavor for the young men of their nation to engage in. But they will soon learn that the justifications of war dissolve in the face of the truth.
Once soldiers arrive in war, and they truly understand what they have gotten themselves into, they lose their grasp on anything except the reality of death. The truth is that war is a meaningless game of death pitting groups against each other that have no reason to be fighting, and do not even understand the reason for this madness. As the diary entry written by a peer from Paul’s perspective says, “We were told that we were here to do a noble and heroic thing for our country. But killing a complete stranger? There is nothing noble or heroic about that.” The soldiers come to realize that the propaganda fed to them and their families is a lie. The worst part is that they understand that their family will never truly understand the horrors that brought them to this conclusion. Everything that they had once believed in no longer held true, and what is more, they are aware that their family still believes those lies. This expands a huge gulf between soldier and citizen. In an effort to protect themselves from this truth, the soldiers become like machines, or animals: “We have become wild beasts. We do not fight, we defend ourselves against annihilation. It is not against men that we fling our bombs, what do we know of men in this moment when death is hunting us down—now, for the first time in three days we can oppose him; we feel a mad anger.”(Remarque 113) This section in the book is discussing the reaction to a bombardment. The issue with the protective strategy they use is that veterans can get stuck in the mechanical nature of survival in war, and then not know how to come back when that is no longer necessary. Their mental armor turns into a prison that will hold them forever prisoner unless we find the key to free them from the war and from themselves.
Society needs to understand the perspectives of the veterans to help them, as well as to understand the consequences of war. The suicide rate of veterans aged 20- 24 in 2005 was 22.9- 31.9 per 100,000 (Keteyian, 2009). This obviously shows that because of the disconnect between the truth of war for citizens and that of soldiers we have an inability to provide the help necessary for a soldier to reintegrate into society. We sent them into war unprepared for the reality of the horrors there, and receive them home equally unprepared for the truths they bring back. To help them, we need to attempt to understand what they’ve been through and accept that there are things that we will never comprehend, and hopefully never have to experience. But even if we can recognize and accept this, the true turning point for our society is the convincing of our leaders.
For our country’s well being, we must reconcile the truth of war for the soldier with the truth for the ones who choose the fate of our country. The soldiers do not understand the reasoning of the war, and the leaders do not understand the morality and horror of war. In the book All Quiet on the Western Front, the concept of a disconnect from the understanding of the citizenry and the leader is discussed: “Now, just why would a French blacksmith or a French shoemaker want to attack us? No, it is merely the rulers.”(Remarque 205) This shows how there is a vast misunderstanding between the ideas of leader and follower, government and soldier. The effect of this on the army is unfortunate, because they are dying at the beck and call of their leaders, who are sworn to do what is right for the country. This is a betrayal of the trust of the individual, and the country.
For our country this conundrum has massive repercussions for the whole basis of our government. The joining of the truth of war for soldier and leader would solve many problems in our government. Morality would have to play a larger role in the planning of any sort of military action. We must reintroduce the truth and confidence in the leader to do what is right. This could also help retroactively discourage the disparate truths, as there would be less need and justification for propaganda. In fact, another solution to this problem would be to have more education of the people, both in schools and through the media. If our media would stop sugarcoating the reality of war, people would realize the truth and refuse to have war force fed to them. This happened for the Vietnam War, and resulted in people realizing the truth and protesting against the war. Add this to leaders who have more of an understanding of the true nature of war, and then we have a solution for our country. We could slowly cut back on the use of war until there is no war and no need for war. Rectifying the issue of differing experiences and different outlooks on life is vital to the survival of our nation and the survival of the world. We have enough power that in a modern war, we could destroy the planet, which gives us a moral obligation to find better methods of communication and mediation. The problem is more pressing now than it has been and the first step to war elimination is to have a unified truth of war that will serve as our compass in the trying times.
Works Cited
Ehrenreich, Barbara. “The Roots of War.” The Progressive April 2003
Great Britain. C.O.S. committee. Two drafts of a letter from Churchill on area bombing, 28 March 1945 and 1 April 1945. 28 March 1945, 1 April 1945. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/heroesvillains/transcript/g1cs3s3t.htm
Keteyian, Armen. “Suicide Epidemic Among Veterans.” Cbsnews.com. 11 February 2009. CBS News. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/13/cbsnews_investigates/main3496471.shtml
Remarque, Erich M. All Quiet on the Western Front. New York: The Random House Publishing Group, 1928.
Project Description
For this project, we were hunting for the truth of war for a soldier. We read All Quiet on the Western Front, as well as Kurt Vonnegut´s Slaughterhouse Five and had seminars on both of them. We also studied various dictators’ rise to power, as well as investigating their methods of control, through the examination of propaganda. A large part of this project was discussing the different views presented in the things we studied with our peers. The main idea was that we would come to a conclusion formed by facts, not manipulated by governmental information, about what war really was. Once we had our truth of war statement, we converted it into a thesis for our persuasive essay. This thesis also had to be shown in an artistic sense in our project. The result was a conclusive statement on what the truth of war was through our eyes.
Project
In this project I feel that I used refinement the most, especially for my artistic representation. For a long time, I couldn’t even think of anything to do, but India gave me the genius idea to do Russian nesting dolls that represent different layers of the different truths of war. However, the dolls were posing difficulties, and because the colors were not working with the black and white faces that I was planning, I was forced to repaint at the last minute. In addition to this, because of the small size of my project, it is hard to create a presentation method that does it justice. In both of these cases I used refinement advice from my peers as well as from our teacher.
Essay
My essay sort of developed a mind of its own over the course of writing it, in the sense that I ended up writing about something very different than my thesis statement. So one of the major changes I made was to rewrite my thesis to fit my paper. This led to difficulties in the editing of my paper later, because my paragraphs did not all connect back to the thesis. This leads me to my second major refinement: I had to go through my essay and add sentences in that connected my paragraphs back to my thesis. I had a lot of trouble with this, due to the way my train of thought worked during the writing process, but I feel that the final product was indeed much better than the previous drafts because of my effort.
Extension
If I had another week to work on my project, I would certainly create some sort of collaged box to present my project. I didn’t have time to do that, but it was part of my original plan, in order to make the presentation more interesting. I had in mind a wooden box, with hinges, and some sort of question on the outside to engage people. As for my essay, I think I would rewrite my first body paragraph with more connections to the rest of my essay, because I feel that it is important, but the revisions I made to it during the process were not sufficient to totally fix it. It gives what I feel is necessary background information for the argument that I make in the rest of my essay.
