War. What is it good for?
Human beings are one of the few species that kills other members of the same species. War is a peculiar thing.
It used to be seen as glorious, heroic and a source of pride. Things have changed. One major event that changed our perception of war was the conflict in Vietnam. It was the first war that was seen on television and people discovered that war was not heroic and glorious, it was mindless killing with no good guys to be found. You may have noticed that in the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan there was no footage of any battles (apart from pictures of missiles flying at night) shown on television. This is because the leaders do not want the people back home to see the butchery and killing the ‘good guys’ are doing.
War is hell, yet so many people want to do it. Why?
War is psychologically damaging.
War is physical carnage.
War is also good for business. Just ask the American armaments companies.
The Things They Carried is a collection of short stories that explores the fighting, the damage – both physical and mental, the lack of any moral force and the enormous struggle that men had when they returned home with coping with their memories of the conflict. Tim O’Brien, who was a soldier, uses story-telling to get to the truth. He argues that story-telling is more true than what happened because it gets to the heart, the emotion and the effects of the war more so than any recounting of the events could.
Anyway.
The Things They Carried intro & pastiche
Film intro to war
Peter Curry