Blog 1: 08/15/19

1. I knew that being in war most definitely takes a toll on the mental health of soldiers on the frontline and for that matter, all over, however this scene made that idea really come alive to me. The scene explicitly showed the kind of effect that war can have on soldiers as we saw on of the soldiers in the scene break down over nightmares about the horrific things that he has seen and experienced in battle. It was also interesting to hear one of the soldiers point out how when one soldier dies, they are quickly replaced. Last year in history we talked about this idea of "total war" as a country but in this scene I saw more of a an internal "total war" in the soldiers.

2. One reading in particular that jumped out to me was the one by Samuel Fuller. Although it was short, it got straight to the point. We, as non-soldiers, cannot even begin to imagine what being in war is really like. We can watch as many movies as we want about war and think that we have a pretty good understanding of what it's like but we will never fully get it until we have actually been in battle. I'm extremely guilty of doing this and jumping to conclusions because often times I take what I see on tv literally and I think I know what something is like, but in reality I have no clue.

3. I'm going to be honest and admit that often times I forget or it doesn't occur to me that U.S. soldiers are fighting in battles today and have been at war for the entirety of my life. As much as I want to be aware of the wars and battles that American soldiers are fighting, they are easy to overlook because these battles have never been near me or affected the way that I live my life. Even in the discussion today, I was shocked to hear the amount of conflicts that we are involved around the world right now and how many American soldier casualities there have been since I was born. Of course I have always known that was is bad and that people die in wars, but I never gave it much thought because it has never directly affected me.