WAR! to be in conflict with life?

Well I have come to the end of my blog! Or as they say in show business it the final curtain call! This is what in the real word is called busy work. I have the links to my 10 comments! I sure hope the all get they’re some that are still waiting in cyber space. I will also take this time to say I found this class to be very enjoyable it made me think past my own take on war and look at with well more open eyes.

It helped me reevaluate why I think they way I do about certain policies and personal beliefs it help strengthen my convictions, but soften my argument. My hats off to all of my classmates and incase I did not get a chance my personal thanks to any one who has severed in the military I thank you for taking up the bonds of liberty and carrying them on for a new generation!

I leave you with a quote form Thomas Paine

“I love the man that can smile in trouble, which can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.”

I did not always agree with what was said in class or in blog’s, but I do respect the different opinions since they are well thought out I hope you all stay true to the passions you find most dear to you! This goes for Dr. Rozema as well I thought you class was one of the best I have had in my college career I thank you for pushing me past my comfort zone and making me a better student. Good luck to everyone in your careers and may God bless you all in what you chose to do with your life!

Sincerely

Michael   

http://kerijaynes.uniblogs.org/2008/03/19/the-american-public-indifference-concerning-todays-soldiers/

http://palmeral.edublogs.org/2008/03/25/the-past-repeats/

http://tumac.edublogs.org/2008/02/18/an-anonymous-end/

http://ullreyg.edublogs.org/2008/02/06/media-battle-30-seconds-of-good-2-hours-of-bad/#comment-9

http://collijes.learnerblogs.org/2008/02/06/why-become-immune/#comment-4

http://roodme.edublogs.org/2008/03/26/dealing-with-the-effects-of-war/#comment-2

http://rooyj.edublogs.org/2008/03/26/the-relief-from-war/#respond

http://thirdsquad.uniblogs.org/2008/04/11/stories/#comment-10

http://whitepe.edublogs.org/2008/03/26/something-for-everyone/#comment-6

http://alpersa.edublogs.org/2008/02/06/let%e2%80%99s-portray-war-how-it-really-is/#comment-19

What is the price of victory? Many feel that conflict is not a necessity and conflicts like the one in Iraq useless! How do you think those who serve feel? This is a question that has long plagued mankind. With all the books for class and the amount of time spent reading about past wars and researching the current ongoing conflict I now have a better understanding of true price of victory.

In there book Since You Went Away: World War II Letters from American Women on the Home Front Judy Barrett Litoff and David C. Smith show that during the trying times of World War Two those who wrote letters knew this charge very well one chapter is in tiled the price of victory in this chapter you have letters that start not being written to those that have go to war, but instead to those who are charged with leading the war. Most notable General Douglass Macarthur. 

“Liberation! So long our hearts have yearned for this moment when Old Glory again proudly ripples in the breeze over The Islands-we’ve preyed so earnestly for it – have pushed with you and with every fiber of our being”

These thoughts of can also be see in Rudyard Kipling’s poem The Choice.

The American Spirit speaks:

TO the Judge of Right and Wrong
    With Whom fulfilment lies
Our purpose and our power belong,
    Our faith and sacrifice,

Let Freedom’s Land rejoice!
    Our ancient bonds are riven;
Once more to us the eternal choice
    Of Good or Ill is given.

Not at a little cost,
    Hardly by prayer or tears,
Shall we recover the road we lost
    In the drugged and doubting years.

But, after the fires and the wrath,
    But, after searching and pain,
His Mercy opens us a path
    To live with ourselves again.

In the Gates of Death rejoice!
    We see and hold the good-
Bear witness, Earth, we have made our choice
    With Freedom’s brotherhood!

Then praise the Lord Most High
    Whose Strength hath saved us whole,
Who bade us choose that the Flesh should die
    And not the living Soul!

To the God in Man displayed-
    Wheree’er we see that Birth,
Be love and understanding paid
    As never yet on earth!

To the Spirit that moves in Man,
    On Whom all worlds depend,
Be Glory since our world began
    And service to the end!

These words touch on every aspect of the price of victory the sacrifice, the tears, the choice, and freedom. These words are very similar to some of the words that I have read and heard in the last few weeks of this semester. In his blog Life through the eyes of a Data Marine Psybain speaks of the price.

“You won’t see me cheering and clamoring for another 10 years of US forces in Iraq, nor will I demand we all pull out now. I think a timetable is stupid. If we said we’d leave in a year, the insurgents would wait us out for a year, knowing that we’d be gone soon and they could act a fool then.”

This is the sentiments of many of those who serve they do not wish to go on fighting for years, but it not up to them. As a marine said at a rally I went to

“The armed forces have two jobs one it to train and be prepared for combat. The seconded job is to achieve victory when in combat. Believe me we want to win NO we need to win it is what we train for. “ 

These words remind me of one of my favorite writers Thomas Paine for those who might not know or remember Mr. Paine is one of the forefathers of the United States he wrote an essay called Common Sense. He has two quotes if feel help define what those who both fight and those who want us not to continue the fight.

“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates his duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.”

As this conflict continues there will be more deaths and there will be more anger and there will be more separation between those who want victory and those who want out.  

I experienced something new this week I was called a “PRO-WAR” conservative, because I want victory in the War. I not sure anyone is “PRO-WAR” war is a destructive form of diplomacy or perhaps it might be a failed form of diplomacy. Victory is that not the goal of any war! So if that makes me “PRO-WAR” then I guess I have to live with it since I feel we need to victory not for us, but for those who we have put in harms way and for those who have given all for victory!

“Faces of the Fallen” this is a link to those who died in service to their nation!

Washington Post

The Choice by Rudyard Kipling

Since You Went Away: World War II Letters from American Women on the Home Front Judy Barrett Litoff David C. Smith

Life through the eyes of a Data Marine by Psybain

With all the negativity that is part of war sometimes it hard to realize that conflicts have positives. I do not mean the battles won or lost, or the defeat of an enemy. I speak of friendship the bond that binds fighting men and woman together. This seen to only be on the victor’s side, but these bonds that last a lifetime and can cross boarders they are universal. In his fictional journal The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien shows just how these bonds are forged and some are lost in a physical since, but the emotions and memories are with you for the duration.

You see this in the books dedication one that maybe given to the real men or to the faded picture that these men where or since it a book of fiction it might be a dedication to O’Brien’s own imagination

“This book is lovingly dedicated to the men of Alpha Company, and in particular to Jimmy Cross, Norman Bowker, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Henry Dobbins and Kiowa”

The bond is real the world and memories have fade, but the feelings have not you get this by the fact that O’Brien repeating

“I am 43 now and a writer”

Why to remind himself perhaps that yes today he is a writer, but once he was part of something special he was a soldier with men he loved. Some of these men died, the strangest part is the fact that it not just them men in his unit that he shares this bond with it is the very enemy they fought. They too forge bonds and carry things. They also wonder did I kill that man, was it my mistake that got others killed the to carry the guilt of wartime bonds. These men on both sides can both feel and understand O’Brien when makes the statement

“I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.”

They have all been a part of the truth and must live with the story! But his tie can still been seen to day with those who fought together and those who fought against. This bond can be split and rekindle by chance. 

“ George Serkedakis and Ken Myers may have been in their last parade. They rode together on Memorial Day in a parade in the District, a couple of elderly vets of the Battle of the Bulge in a ceremonial Jeep. But Myers is closing in on 87, and Serkedakis, at 93, is finding it harder to muster the energy. They have nothing planned for the Fourth of July; neither is sure he will make it to the 99th Infantry Division Reunion in September. “I was really scared he was going to fall out of that Jeep,” says Serkedakis’s wife, Faye, 70, on recalling her husband’s last public excursion. “They are slowing down now, for sure.”But even as they bow, finally, to the inevitable struggles of age, the two still make a point of getting together. It has been more than 30 years since they rediscovered one another, but they still thrive on rehashing the remarkable fate that brought them together twice. Once on a blood- and snow-covered battlefield in Belgium, where one saved the life of the other, saved it against the direct orders of an Army doctor who had already consigned the wounded soldier to a Belgian grave. And again, three decades later, in a traffic jam in downtown Washington. “Hey buddy. Hey buddy.” Serkedakis looked over at a burly guy in a pickup. Does the name Ken Myers mean anything to you?” It didn’t. Serkedakis stared and said: “Pull over.” They stood on the curb and talked for four hours. Serkedakis had found the guy to thank. They had been living, all that time, less than five miles apart That’s what Myers and Serki have been ever since: buddies. Dinners together, parades and lots of long, repetitive talk about the same series of events. They don’t care if they’ve been through it a thousand times before. “The same stories, over and over,” said Faye Serkedakis, laughing. “They have a lot of pride about what they went through. They want to hang on to it a little longer.”

Or sometimes it can is done to remember those fallen on both sides.

“One by one, survivors from ships sunk 65 years ago Thursday in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor laid wreaths under life-preserver rings honoring their ships”

“The veterans, most in Hawaiian shirts, were honored with prolonged applause at the solemn ceremony near where some of the ships remain in the harbor, rusting and covered with algae”

“Japanese veterans who participated in the attack as navigators and pilots will also pay their respects, offering flowers at the Arizona memorial for the Americans and Japanese who died”

Those once enemy’s now share the story of war the pains, and the joys. War is not a pleasant thing, but the friendships that are formed go beyond those in a civilian world we talk about the war and here in are blog’s we try to analyze it, but we can never understand these friendships because they are not built on simple trust they are built in forge and fire of conflict and this is a truth that you must know to have this type of union.

The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien

Washington Post

This blog is probably not going to make me many friends in class you see this was a blog that I put on a personal site on the 27^th of March I guess I have to give thanks to this class and my History of Warfare class constantly thinking about war and its place in society. I ask Dr. Rozema if a RANT could be used on the first day and he said no after I posted this blog I realized that I think it could fit into the structure of the class he said I could use it if I tied it into what was in the class so I needed to reread my own work and then see how it lined up with what we have been going over I think I have done that, but the real test will be you the reader. (NOTES FOR READERS)

Anything that is in italics is the original blog.

Anything in bold is new and added to join it to the class and the ideas shared within the class.

Well hello there blog fans today is a special day because I am ready able and willing to go off like a 100 megaton bomb that is one big ass explosion!

I guess I really should have done this about a week ago, but for some reason I waited I think it was so that I could calm down and think. So that my words did not just role out of my mouth and into my keyboard making me seem stupid or crazy I want my words to be hard hitting and hopefully a little infectious. If not then I do hope they at least make you think and feel for a brief moment in someone else shoe’s namely mine.

I guess I did this much like both Vera Brittian and Tim O’Brian they had thoughts and experiences that need time to find the write words.

“For nearly a decade I wanted, with a growing sense of urgency, to write something which would show what the whole War …Has meant to the men and woman of my generation”

“On occasions the war was like a Ping-Pong ball. You could put a fancy spin on it, you could make it dance.”

I felt I need to say something give my spin so many times about the anti-war movement I didn’t because I know it will seem like anger or as some have stated hate, but it is not its my feelings towards something I am passionate about, only this time I waited for the words to come to me so that others might see my side if only for a moment and I believe this is what these writers want as well.

Let me fill you in on a few things I go to a very liberal university right in the middle of one of the most conservative counties in the country. Now I have no real anger towards those whose opinions differ from mine other then I think for the betterment of our country that their ideas are wrong for it. However there is something that is going on here and around the nation and that is the anti-war movement! I will be totally blunt this sickens me not because of their protesting, it an important right in this country to be able to have those protest. What does make me ill is they have lost sight of what is really at stake in the War on Terror. The fact is they are protesting the wrong thing most of the protest that I have seen have been for us to stop the war in Iraq!

The funny thing is we are not at war with Iraq! Since March 20^th of 2003 out troops have been in a theater of operation in a much large conflict just like in World War II there was the European and Pacific theaters with this war there is Iraq and a Afghanistan theater and in this war there will be other theaters to come.

Many would say that we as a nation are at war and it is called the Iraq War that is more of a media spin (MORE ON THAT LATER) this spin can be seen in many ways, but the law only sees it one way

“Public Law 107-243 107th Congress Joint Resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq. H.J. Res. 114 www.c-span.org/resources/pdf/hjres114.pdf“

There is not a formal declaration of war with Iraq when I was thinking about this as I was going over it was drawn to some of what O’Brian said

“I did not want to die. Not ever. But certainly not then, not there, not in a wrong war”

Who decides if it is a wrong war the Congress and the President both bodies who are elect by the people you really want the War over change them! But in 2004 we kept the President 2006 we changed the Congress who can change the law about the war, but did not instead extended it and continued its funding.  

What really infuriates me is the fact that many of those who are against the war have forgot that the war did not start on March 20^th of 2003 or October 7, 2001 in Afghanistan! It started on a September morning in 2001 when as a nation we came under a brutal and well thought out plan of pure hate and anger. This was not an attack with bunch of bombs or hail of bullets; no it was a one of cowards, men who twisted the ideals of others from thousands of miles away as they sat in safety and basked in their evil plans!

You see even I had forgot that a bit so I did something I went to youtube and watched it again and felt that numbness and the tears the weld up and ran down my cheeks. To see the planes, the buildings burning and to watch as they come down again and to feel my stomach twist into a knot! To hear our nation anthem played by the UK during the changing of the their guards, and to mourn not for soldiers, but for countrymen. Have we let time soften us to the fact that we are at war not with people, but with men who hate what we live for? So then next time you get up and feel that the war is wrong remember that those we are fighting hate the fact that you can protest the war that they STARTED. When you go to work, take your kids to school, chose the way you want to worship, shop where you want, buy the things need and want and all the other things you do is what the want to destroy! They see your life as a disease you ideas as propaganda they find you as the most evil thing on the planet someone who does not agree with them!

This war is not like others it not about resources, it not about fascism, it is not truly about political ideology, and it not about religious zealots. Sure many of those have some factors, but the truth is it about your very existence as an not even an American, but as some one who has FREEDOM, COURAGE, AND THE RIGHT TO LIVE YOUR LIFE!

Now I am smart enough to know that not everyone even my friends will agree with me, but go back to 9/11 and relive that pain the shock, the horror, cry and feel the lost and wonder who and why. Be a bit angry am I saying that we need to live at that moment in time NO! Living there would not be wise, but forgetting it is not wise either THE WAR WAS NOT STARTED BY US!

The similarities between my words and those in the letters in the book Since You Went Away from the onset of World War II for America was well I thought fascinating 

“I’ve just been listening to the radio. I’ve never been so blue or heartsick as I am right at the minute.”

“Everyone is talking of war, war, war!”

“To say we were all stunned to hear the terrible news of Sunday last over the air is putting it mildly”

These words seem so similar; did we not have this same dedication after 9/11? Yes we did what changed for many it the fact that not a quick war many who are leading the charge for the anti-war movement are in there 20’s the only war then know is the Gulf War that last 100 hours that is a rarity. Most wars have names some show the length 100 years War the Seven Years War. What would have the out come of WWII been if the public had lost it focus in spring of 1944 would have D-Day been a joyous day?

So why should we stop it (the war) I feel for those who have lost family I know how many have died the media will not let us forget, but they will let us forget the first strike against us.

Now back to media look at the headlines from the last few days:

“U.S. Deaths in Iraq War Reach 4,000; Green Zone Is Shelled”

“Antiwar activists march on Pentagon”

“Wisconsin Army Recruiting Center Vandalized”

Where are the headlines about 9/11 there are none unless it deals with celebrity, money, conspiracy, or how we as a country our wrong for being upset by the attack still.

“Oscar-Winner Marion Cotillard Thinks 9/11 Was a Conspiracy”

“Families Settle Claims In Attack on Pentagon”

“Stop Getting Mad, America Get Smart”

So as this war goes on please remember why we fight the armed forces of the United States are an all volunteers some before 9/11 and after some before Afghanistan and after and some before Iraq and some after! Those who have gone and will continue to go know why AND THEY REMEMBER that is why the go!

So from now on I am going to expand something I have done I make sure I shake the hand of every person I see in uniform and say thank you NOW every time I see a anti-war person I going to ask when did the WAR start and if they say anything other then 9/11 I just inform them they are mistaken and start my own rally to remember 9/11 the being of the War not in Iraq, but the War against LIFE!

Now let make sure you understand me I see myself as a patriot I would go as far as to quote Vera Brittian and say that I believe in  “the bloodthirsty armchair patriotism” not that war is the answer, but when it is brought to your front door you must fight it. President Theodore Roosevelt said, “speak softly and carry a big stick” the world knows we have that stick, as a nation we must stay united when that stick is swung. Does this mean I feel that that war is just well if O’Brien touches on that:

“When a nation goes to war it must have a reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause”

Those we elected made a decision and we as a nation have had ample opportunity within are legal scope to change that leadership we did not. So it not up to me if I feel it just that duty falls to the hands of the historians I have twice said that war is theater and I finish by going there again. The title of my blog is War conflict with life? Well I now see that war and peace are the antagonist and protagonist of life the questions we are stuck with as mankind is which one is which, is war a period between peaces or is peace a period between war?

Testament of Youth Vera Brittan

Since You Went Away: World War II Letters from American Women on the Home Front Judy Barrett Litoff David C. Smith

The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien

Washington Post

Fox News