I would recommend this book to peers as it does cover those aspects we tend to stray away from in war. We covet our ideas for war planning and our advanced technology, but when it comes down to it war is very much the same, it just holds different devices to kill each other with. In many scenarios in “the Defence of Duffers Drift” the cold hard truth that every reader pries from the story is that following the lessons over and over made the commander win, but from my point of view I would almost call the commander incompetent, for one reason. It stated he had been no stranger to war and obviously understood the enemy and the surrounding area. If you had to fight a battle six times to fully understand it, most likely you would lose your first
For training, the author shares the difficult task involved in the training and that went into preparing the American solider for battle in World War I from multiple levels including from Brownies’ perspective. The author gave clear and concise examples to strengthen his claim concerning the overwhelming task of training an inexperienced army. As the Snead explains, “Historians, journalists, and others have written numerous books
town was just a small hamlet the only protection from the sea was by a
As with any genre, all novels termed ‘war stories’ share certain elements in common. The place and time settings of the novels, obviously, take in at least some aspect of at least one war or conflict. The characters tend to either be soldiers or are at least immediately affected by the military. An ever present sense of doom with punctuated moments of peace is almost a standard of the war novel. Beyond the basic similarities, however, each of these battle books stands apart as an individual. Charles Yale Harrison’s World War I novel, Generals Die in Bed is, in essence, quite different than Colin McDougall’s Execution. Coming years earlier, Generals can almost be seen to hold the wisdom one would expect see in an older sibling, while Execution suffers the growing pains that the younger child inevitably feels.
Despite these minor flaws, the book has many positive aspects to it. Probably most important, the book gives the reader an up close and personal account to the war. Each battle comes alive for the reader as a veteran vividly describes what he experienced. For example Vincent Walsh describes his first encounter with a violent death as follows: “we had occasion to pick up a dead pilot. They fingerprinted him and then he was wrapped in a piece of canvas and he went into a meat box” (Tomedi, 155). Lines such as this, puts a personality behind the speaker and makes it more personal. Also, the stories in the book present the same situations as other oral history novels. A good example of this is when Robert Roy claims “…I could see a line of tanks coming down the road, which we never expected…I could see the rounds explode against the tank, but the tank just kept going” (Tomedi, 10-11).
The Wars by Timothy Findley is an anti-war novel set during the First World War. The novel follows Robert Ross, a Canadian military officer, as he suffers through the horrors of the war both on and off the battlefield. As the novel progresses, Robert evolves from an innocent young man to a deeply troubled and broken individual. This loss of innocence plays a great role in Robert’s development as a character and is highlighted by his experiences with sex and death, experiences that eventually leads to his downfall.
Keegan chooses the three well documented campaigns of Agincourt in 1415, Waterloo in 1815, and Somme in 1916 to answer the question of his thesis: To find out how men who are faced with the threat of single-missile and multiple-missile weapons control their fears, fix their wounds, and face their death. In his words he is seeking “to catch a glimpse of the face of battle.”
The two classic war novels ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ by Erich Maria Remarque and ‘Catch 22’ by Joseph Heller both provide a graphic insight into the life of soldiers serving their country in the historic world wars. One distinct theme of interest found in both books, is the way in which war has physically and mentally re-shaped the characters. Remarque creates the character Paul Baümer, a young soldier who exposes anxiety and PTSD (commonly known as Shellshock) through his accounts of WW1’s German army. ‘Catch 22’ however, is written in the third person and omnisciently explores insanity and bureaucracy in an American Bombardier Squadron through its utter lack of logic. The two novels use their structure, characters, symbolism and setting to make a spectacle of the way war re-shapes the soldiers.
War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning is most definitely an effective book that gives personal stories and deeply insightful views and theories on war. Chris Hedges is a credible and extremely talented author. This book is definitely a piece of writing that helps open up our eyes about the ugliness that is going on in the world today. Chris Hedges' central message is to stop hating and start to learn how to love. This book is a deep, personal reflection on many wars by an award winning journalist. Every civilian, military member and political leader should undoubtedly read this book. War skews reality, dominates culture, seduces society with its heroic attributes, distorts memory, and supports a cause, and allures us by a constant battle between death and love. The moment we learn to forgive and love is when we can begin to recover and move on.
The novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque describes the psychological and physical battles of young soldiers such as the main character Paul Baumer who was pressured by the spirit of nationalism and his school master into joining the German army during World War I. In the beginning the young students are glowing with enthusiasm with the honor to be trusted with serving their nation in a time of crisis. The inexperienced soldiers soon loose their innocence and eagerness as they watch the new technological capabilities of the twentieth century painfully kill their comrades one by one and in the end become weary, burnt out, rootless, and hopeless. Over time the young soldiers, through experience, begin to realize their years of schooling are completely useless in a society filled with war. They were taught the basics of the world of work, duty, culture, and progress when the only knowledge they need is how to survive. The author, through his novel All Quiet on the Western Front, attempts to portray the vivid horrors and the raw nature of war and to change the popular belief of war as an idealistic and romantic character. This is evident through the barriers placed between Paul and the relationship with his parents and the rest of society who still view war as glamorous and cherish his war stories as though he were telling them a fairy tale. The novel also attempts to explain the purposes of war and its uselessness in society. The ultimate question that Erich Remarque raises in his novel is what did a whole generation give up their lives and precious innocence to accomplish. All Quiet on the Western Front is a story not of Germans, but of men, who even though “they frequently escape shells, are destroyed by the war”. This novel have could easily been transformed into the tale of a Frenchmen, an Englishmen, or an American fighting in World War I.
In reading this chapter I came to acknowledge a lot facts that I didn’t realize about the British Zulu war. The battle at Rorke’s drift, and the battle at Isandhlwana are the chapter main focus in book Carnage and Culture. It gave multitudes of information that went well in detail about the battles. After reading the chapter, and researching the information on the war, and comparing the information presented by Victor Davis Hanson I found the information insightful and correct. He backs up his statements with facts and explains how western military forces were so dominate because of tactics, discipline and technology.
The Battle: The Story of the Bulge is not a book about how the American’s used sheer numbers and force to overcome the Germans. It is a story of how the GI, who was independent, cocky, and had poor garrison etiquette, overcame the odds and became an unlikely strong adversary thus winning the battle. I can relate to the GI because I find myself at times to be cocky and not always wanting to take orders I don’t agree with. I think this relation helped me to understand some of the emotions the soldiers expressed throughout the
Matthew Dodd is a 19th century British war veteran. Being the main character of this book, was left behind during a retreat led by Lord Wellington of the British Army off the lines of Torres Vedras. While his leadership knew he was missing in action they proceeded to retreat anyways. Private Dodd set off and didn’t let anyone, or anything prevent him from finding his way through enemy territory. He knew his situation and continued on with the mission to kill any apposing Frenchmen. He continued to skirmish through enemy lines traversing through with great fatigue and starvation. During his lonesome journey he singlehandedly used guerilla warfare tactics and maneuvers to besiege a French convoy. Private Dodd discovers in a French City a Bridge under construction in efforts to form an attack on the British army. But before they were able to finish building Dodd set the support ropes on the bridge ablaze to impede their attack.
All Quiet On the Western Front was a very emotional book, when they are there at the western front there are a lot of fatalities for people who are not paying attention.. On the frontlines you can never let your guard down. Some of the new recruits that are put with them don't know anything. Most of them are so scared they let fear over take them then they get killed in action. Even for
The Things They Carried is a funny little book in the sense that it isn’t told how most books are. It goes from war to camping on the borderline of Canada, back to war, and then into present day times. It works marvelously well, showing you what actually happened and then what he thought about what happened and what he could have done to change the outcome. There are many things that I think people can learn from his experiences in the Vietnam war and the way he tells those stories and lessons really bring you along for the ride.
...tracks pretzeling of snipers taking out troops that stumble into their sights.”(Stephan) The author makes direct comparisons to For Whom the Bell Tolls and explains how “...that image has...shaped modern day impressions” on war. Wilkinson blames Hemingway and other authors for putting this point of view into readers’ minds about war. It states that people only thing this way because of the books and that real war is not as exciting as it seems. This article is very biased but still makes a good argument about what an actual reader feels about war and war novels. The author specifically targets Hemingway’s work. In my research paper I can support people’s views on war from a different viewpoint and not that we want to get in wars. And the claim that we even know anything about war except for the images that have been put into ours mind by writers like Hemingway.