Without Pain There is No Happiness in A Rumor of War by Phillip Caputo

There are many elements use to describe pain and suffering during novels such as, A Rumor of War and the other works that represent war and the other topics within war. Without this common element within these books and other works, war would not be accurately represented.

Pain and suffering is a common element used as a tool in literary works such as, A Rumor of War. In the book, Caputo describes the horrendous sights that he saw while serving in his tours overseas. He vividly recalls how he felt while having to write death reports about soldiers, “All reports had to be written in that clinical, euphemistic language military prefers to simple English. If, say, a marine been shot through the guts, I could not write "shot through the guts" or even "shot through the stomach"; no, I had to say; "GSW" ( gunshot wound ) "through and through, abdomen." Shrapnel wounds were called "multiple fragment lacerations," and the phrase for dismemberment, one of my very favorite phrases, was "traumatic amputation."” This was very important to the reader as it showed the deaths that Caputo had to witness, and actually observe close up. All of this helped to show the pain and suffering of those who died on those fields, and Caputo’s pain in just having to do the book work concerned with the vast amount of KIA’s, WIA’s and MIA’s. Death, is a major theme used to convey the element of pain within these literary works and other works on wars throughout time.

Movies about war through the ages also have pain and suffering as an underlying element. One such movie is The Hurt Locker, in the movie, SFC William James joins up with a Explosive Ordinance Disposal team which is on the home stretch of their tour in Iraq. James is coming into the unit in th...

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...is just too hot for any of them to make it out alive. Lutrell, makes it down the hill and is rescued by a local and the battle continues in the town of the local as they defend him. The element of pain is shown in this movie, both physically and mentally and it shows how certain individuals can push through vast amounts of pain. The members of the squad are wounded and ultimately three of the four members are killed. The movie shows the pain that Lutrell is feeling and how he could push the physical and mental limitations to make it.

In all works about war, the element of pain is essential. Without pain, there is no real happiness. The men described in these works all endured vast amounts of physical and emotional pain on their tours serving the country and the accurate representations of their time overseas wouldn’t be able to be complete without this element.