From A Battlefield

To those at home,

I would tell you not to worry if I didn't already know that my request would be in vain. Recently, my battalion has been posted on guard duty around a medical outpost located in the Green Zone of Baghdad, so you can at least try to rest at ease knowing that I'm in the safest area in Iraq. I thought that seeing all the death and suffering around me would numb me to the pain of seeing another human being suffer, but I was happy to see that I was wrong. About a month ago, as I sat at my post, I saw a helicopter fly in to unload some poor soldier who had been hit by some shrapnel from a roadside bomb and just looking at the poor fellow I knew that even if he made it through by some miracle, he wouldn't be the same. I don't want to recall the gruesome details, but it will suffice to say he will never walk on his two legs again. Saddened by this scene, I was determined to go visit the guy once he started to feel better - something that happened just yesterday. At first, he just lay in his bed listening to me just talk about whatever came to my mind. I talked about my close encounters, about all of you back home, about basketball and football and after about an hour or so, he started to tell me about his time back in the USA. He hasn't talked to me about his extensive injuries but we have bonded on talks about sports and general banter. Anyways, I just wanted to let you know that I'm doing well and that I'm looking forward to next month when I get to come back home.

Love all of you,
Soldier X

A Soldiers Words

Yesterday, I found an interview with an injured soldier, Sergeant Will, who has decided to reenlist into the army. He crushed his leg while serving his country because as he puts it " [he] was in the wrong place at the wrong time." As I continued to read his interview, it was these kinds of responses that surprised me. Earlier this year, I watched a documentary about injured soldier and their homecomings and a majority of them were, rightfully, bitter. Sergeant Will, on the other hand, appeared to be joking with his interviewer. Witty answers like, " For the people who don't know these names look them up in a history book" in regards to his family's military background, and "To me, I do find it cute. I wish I made as much as a mercenary" in regards to remark that our soldier are acting as mercenaries suggest that he has moved on from the emotional turmoil of his injury. Or maybe not. It has been always said that laughter is the best medicine so perhaps that is why Sgt. Will has taken a more joyous approach to this interview.

After reading his chat with Mr. Spree, I felt there were still some unanswered questions. Had I been given a chance to ask some questions, I would've asked Sgt. Will how the injury had affected him both in Iraq and here in the US. Also, I would inquired about how others in his combat battalion fared during his accident. Finally, I was ask about how he views the Iraqi's.


You can find the full interview at Wake Up America.

Darfur: Seeing Destruction in a New Light Thanks to the Internet

For the last few years, we have all heard about the tragedy that is Darfur. For those of you in the dark about this genocide, since 2003 the Sudanese military has been hunting down and killing nomadic tribes. The unfortunate beginnings of this conflict lie in problems of overpopulation combined with long droughts and deforestation. Since this genocide has started, largely unnoticed by the global population as a whole, we have come together to combat the terrible events following the tsunami, send aid to help in the Chili earthquakes, and of course, the rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katherina. In effort to bring awareness to this problem, Google along with the Holocaust Memorial Museum, have placed small red marks on the map of Darfur, as seen by the Google Earth satellite, wherever a village has been destroyed. Just looking at the map, see right, we are able to see the conflagration of destruction that the Sudanese people are enduring. If that isn't enough to grab your attention, by clicking on the aforementioned red marks, you can see vivid pictures of starving children who cry for the lives that have been lost. If we don't take note soon these images of sorrow will forever remain in Darfur.

War: A Failure to Communicate

Before I talk about this post, I want to explain why I chose to write about what I’m about to write about. Ever since my post about the American Civil war, the concept of a war has bothered me as I couldn’t fathom why or how war was even possible. Then, a couple of days ago, I heard a dorm-mate playing the Guns and Roses song, Civil War, and I felt like that song and the associated music video expressed my feelings very well.

Click to see a non official Guns and Roses video on "Civil War" and its lyrics.

First of all, I would like to look at the fan made video for this song which did a good job of capturing the confusing nature of civil wars. In this video, around 3:56, shows the chaos that is war. A man stumbles and the next thing he knows another soldier tries to skewer him. This gruesome scene, however, appears extremely sad when one notices the mournful, yet blank faces of the soldiers. This sadness, this disorder is compounded through the lyrics. The very first line describes the problem that causes war – miscommunication. Then the chorus speaks volumes about the persistent yet unnecessary state of combat by through the simple repetition of the word “look” and the rhyming of the words “fighting, crying, and dying” makes the song and its message particularly memorable. Finally, the song ends with the wonderfully witty question (in particular about civil wars) “Whaz so civil 'bout war anyway?”

Biology of War

The renowned bio-chemist Sir Gorge Porter noted “I have no doubt that we will be successful in harnessing the sun's energy.... If sunbeams were weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago.” While this quote is highly acerbic, it by no means hides the fact that war acts as a catalyst for humans. Just as various enzymes help a certain chemical reaction to occur efficiently in the body, war helps speed up human ingenuity. Many of our finest inventions like nuclear power, the Global Positioning System, ABS, satellite communications, and so on were mere byproducts of wartime research. But why? Does the additional funding for scientific research explain this increase in productivity? No. Just as enzymes are coded into our genetic data, this effect of war is encoded in our will to survive. Evolutionarily speaking, individuals perform tasks in a more expedient manner when their live is on the line. It is this basic instinct to survive, which is threatened by war that helps humans push their minds to the limit to help their country.

The Shadow of Hiroshima

The ability to come to a decision as a team of varied individuals, collaboration, is a skill often overlooked. However, for our English class this semester, our instructor asked us to team up into groups of four and come up with a new post. After thinking about the nature of our assignment, we decided to look at a picture of the Hiroshima Shadows and write down two words that came to our mind. We then combined these words (gruesome, still, light, frozen in time, immortal, escape, blotted, lost) and wrote a poem. Click here to check out the picture.

Shadows frozen in time
Immortal they died
Unable to escape the gruesome light
The everyday life they lost
Is still blotted in our minds
Forever frozen are the Shadows of Hiroshima

As a side note, the Shadows of Hiroshima are shadows of people going about their everyday life before the atomic bomb went off. The enormous amount of radiation ejected from the bomb painted the wall. However, some of the radiation was blocked by people and other opaque objects, and thus left their "shadows". A beautiful result of a tragic incident.

Aliens: The Cure to War

"I couldn't help but say to [Mr. Gorbachev], just think how easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held if suddenly there was a threat to this world from another planet. [We'd] find out once and for all that we really are all human beings here on this earth together."
- Ronald Regan

Much of what is said as a joke has a kernel of truth in it and this factious remark by the former president Regan is no different. The truth underlying Regan's comment lies in the science of ecological interactions. Humans, like all other animals, are programmed genetically to gear towards violence. This intraspecies competition, however, is also genetically overruled by interspecies competition. This explains why it must take aliens, another species intelligent enough to threaten our species, for human civil war to end. With that said, humans are the only species capable of overcoming nature. So, it is my hope that we are able to surpass our genetic obstacle of aggression and end this ridiculous "intraspecies"competition.

Looking Back at the Iraqi War: 2003

In this photograph from the streets of Baghdad, a monument to Saddam Hussein is being brought down by U.S. troops before a crowd of Iraqi spectators. In central focus is the curious, shocked expression of the U.S. soldier and the falling statue, being pulled down by a chain noose. In the background is the crowd of onlookers, blurred out, and without focus. It is impossible to tell what they are thinking or feeling from the photograph. The photo uses the contrast between dark and light well, with the soldier and the statue being very dark, and giving the appearance of everything else being whitewashed. The low angle exaggerates the size of the statue and soldier. The statue being pulled down by a metal noose is very metaphorically significant as well. It represents the collapse of the Iraqi dictatorship by the U.S. leadership, perhaps this related to the whitewashing out the Iraqi people's opinion by the United States in it's quest for control over Iraq.

Written with - Eytan and Matt

Vertigo

Looking at the image to the left, I almost get a sense of vertigo. The tilted angle of the picture combined with the non-parallel repetition of the bombers epitomizes that feeling of nausea described by war veterans. In addition, the focus on the planes makes it apparent of how bleak and empty the background really is. This emptiness is enhanced by the dark values used in the planes, the hillside and the clouds. However, the eyes always travel back to the planes, captured by their ominous journey, cutting through the air, just waiting to drop their deadly cargo.

Open the Lines of Communication

Fellow Americans,

Plato’s observation that “Only the dead have seen the end of war" is one of the most obvious remarks by this great man and as a testament to his words, our everyday lives seem to be saturated with war related information. Ironically, I don’t feel that we as a collective nation are very informed about the totality of war. This concept is exemplified by our response to the terrible events of 9/11. Instead of waiting to analysis the situation carefully and use history to our advantage, we American’s as a whole rightfully demanded retribution. While we were right in our demands and right in our pursuit of Bin Laden into Afghanistan, in our rage, we neglected to learn from the many failed conquests of that country. I partially blame this reaction to the inadequate/partial media coverage of any current event. Whenever I turn on the news, I hear the same basic analysis of the ongoing around the world, and that similarity in analysis is very troubling. People has always disagreed about event the most basic concepts, so I find it hard to believe that all the news groups can only come up with one basic analysis. The solution to this problem is very simple and it is something that our parents have been telling us forever – keep an open mind. This means that we Americans need to either force our current media to pick up new angles or find a new source of information to obtain all possible information about a given topic. If we do not take the proper steps to rectify the aforementioned problem, I fear that mistakes such as our early invasion of Afghanistan will be repeated.

- A concerned citizen.