Blog 1 Response: Sophia Huynh

1)       What struck me the most about the short scene was the intensity of one emotion Private Grady expresses: fear.  Oftentimes, the concept of war itself can seem big, a vast, almost limitless term, yet I forget about each individual life that is involved in war.  These are people, who express emotions: fear, joy, and happiness, and many soldiers, like Private Grady, are scared of the fact that they themselves, could die at any moment and easily be replaced by another.  As a soldier, they are able to associate with the real horrors of war, yet still in a sense, there is a certain expectation to act as if it doesn’t faze them.

“You think I’m a coward?”

“No Grady, I think you’re in war.”

2)        The quote that struck me the most was “I learned early on that war forms its own culture...for war is a drug, one I ingested for many years.” (Chris Hedges, War is a Force That). It replays the ideal that in a sense, war is a ubiquitous language that is always spoken, for with every interaction, war will always be all-consuming and affects everyone around us: through our media, our behavior as humans, daily interactions, and our own consciousness.

3)        I have never been fully present in the concept of war.  My first encounter with the concept was from stories passed down from my father.  Instead of regaling about warfare itself, he spoke from his own experience about the war’s effects, and the fear placed upon the people during what was categorized as “temporary peace”.  However, I have never fully encountered war and its aftermath, as the closest I come have been through the screens of violence from movie theaters. When looking at it further, it terrifying to know that after growing into a culture of war, of mass media coverage, oftentimes, casualties look like numbers on a blank page, rather than people in our own communities.