Response to Blog 1 (8/15/2019)

1. The scene from Fury really pounds in the psychological trauma experienced by soldiers. Watching that after reading the various quotes and poems in the class description helps to put a face (even if the face belongs to an actor’s) to the people mentioned in and depicted in those quotes and poems. 
2. The quote by Samual Fuller about how you can’t portray war in movies. It really puts into perspective how we, as civilians, really have no idea of what war is like. The casual way he just says “the casualties would be bad for business” also sticks in my head, the humor in that comment really contrasts with the severity of the statement and the truth behind it. 
3. The country has been at war for my entire life, so I don’t have any context for how life would be at peace. For most of my life, until I was embarrassingly old, I was unaware that we were at war, and thought that our military was getting so much funding and attention because we were just ‘careful’. I don’t think it has affected my life much because we are not at total war, where every citizen has a responsibility to help in a war effort, so I have had to do nothing to support a war. Since the war had such a little effect on my life, I didn’t think about war as a present threat. I was never afraid that someone would attack my family or friends, and never had to consider the possibility that I might be drafted. Now, some of that naivety sticks in my thinking. Even though I have family who in the armed services, it takes a conscious effort for me to really consider war as something that affects me or anyone I know. It’s very easy, too easy, to just believe that it is something that is happening on the other side of the world that I don’t have to be concerned with.