The Real War Summary

An article called, “The Real War,” written by Roger J. Spiller, begins with a quote by Walt Whitman, “The real war will never get in the books.” The author writes about an interview with Paul Fussell, who was a soldier in World War Two and has written many books about World War One and World War Two. Fussell is very opinionated and critical about other books written about these wars, asserting they are not realistic or portray the true essence of what really occurred by soldiers and other people participating in the wars. I claim that it is impossible to convey the actual personal feelings and emotions of those involved in a war in books or any other forms of media. There are thousands of books, articles, biographies

Fussell states, “If you’ve been in combat more than ten minutes, you know that it is about survival, and it’s about killing in order to survive.” While most people have read or seen news reports on war, unless they were in a situation that Fussell just stated, it is impossible to know how it feels to have to kill someone in order to survive; or have the fear that you may be

As time passes, people move on, memories fade, anger and fear often subside. This could be one reason why the information reported on any war becomes sanitized over time. It’s not that the information reported is inaccurate, but the connection to the wartime era being reported diminishes as time elapses and the number of survivors declines. Even if we cannot personally feel their emotions, survivors can still bestow important facts about their personal involvement that historical accounts do not always provide. But unfortunately, not many survivors are still alive from the World Wars. Florence Green, who served in the British Allied armed forces during World War One, died in 2012. She was the last survivor and now there is no one left from that war that can personally provide descriptions of what they saw and felt. As the number of World War Two and Holocaust survivors decline, their impressions of the war will cease also. That is why it is important to document their personal accounts. PBS documentaries and people like Steven Spielberg, who has filmed over 52,000 personal testimonies of Holocaust Survivors, are attempting to provide this type of information as best they