The Truth of War Essay

Love and Suffering, Anger and Pride

The average mind might look to war and see only the negativity; however, there is a positive aspect that lurks just below the surface. Of course, this aspect isn’t present in everyone, there are many, many people who see and experience only the suffering of war. The question of who is going to react positively and who is going to react negatively to war can sometimes be answered by knowledge of a person’s personality: how people react to different things. The suffering in war is often different than what the average person would think that it is, while most people see it as the simple straightforward pain of a gunshot wound, in actuality, there is much more psychological and emotional trauma than there is physical hurt. Similarly, there is a great difference between the actual pride that a soldier gets from experiences in war, and the commonly perceived pride. It might be assumed that a soldier would be proud of having killed for their country, and while that isn’t impossible, it is much more likely that a soldier be ashamed of that aspect and be solely proud of having protected their family, friends and country. When looking at the possible psychological trauma that can result from war, there is also the variable of whether any one person was drafted into war, or if it was their decision, for that can also change how a person acts, and therefore, how they are affected by battle. Some people come back from war with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and others come back with heightened clarity; it can be harmful to assume either state for a veteran. The truth of war, for a soldier, is both the quintessence of suffering and an experience offering the highest pride known to man.

 In the midst of a war it goes without saying that everyone experiences some level of suffering, but for some there is a heightened distress unique to battle or POW camp. The biographical book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, tells the story of Olympic runner turned soldier Louie Zamperini. When Louie is captured by the Japanese and forced into a POW camp the story takes a dark turn as descriptions of the psychological tortures that the camp Commander would force on the prisoners is shown: “He forced men to bow at pumpkins or trees for hours. He ordered a clergyman POW to stand all night saluting a flagpole, shouting the Japanese word for ‘salute,’ keirei; the experience left the man weeping and out of his mind,” (237). The simple fact that someone was driven insane shows both the horrible effect of war on the human psyche and just how much even every soldier was forced to bear. Although less common in this book, there were also descriptions of how “Virtually every day, [the guards] flew into rages that usually ended in Phil and Louie being bombarded with stones and lit cigarettes, spat upon, and poked with sticks,” (181). Both of these quotations show the suffering that some soldiers experience in the midst of war, suffering that can sometimes drive them to insanity. One of the most surprising things about these two examples is the contrived maliciousness of these tormenters, for it brings up the question: ‘did their own suffering in war turn these people into monsters, or were they born sadistic?’ This question is incredibly relevant to the suffering that a soldier experiences in war, because, as the question itself asks: is a malicious and vindictive person that way because of what they have experienced in war. For some, the suffering in war pales in comparison to the suffering that veterans experience long after the last shot has been fired.

Oftentimes, the effects of war on the human mind show themselves after the battle has ended, when the soldier is trying to rehabilitate at home. In Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, Louie struggles greatly with PTSD after he returns home, which leads to horrible actions and thoughts. At one point after Louie returns home he dreams that he was strangling his POW camp tormentor, when he wakes up, he discovers himself to be “straddling Cynthia’s chest, his hands locked around her neck. Through her closing throat, she was screaming. Louie was strangling his pregnant wife,” (376). This one quote shows how much Louie was affected by his experience in the war and how it affected him after the fact. That Louie dreamed about killing a man shows one thing, but, the fact that he was so enraged in his dream that he began to subconsciously kill his wife, truly proves the extent of damage that he received from his time in the war. There were, of course, also many ways that Louie changed after war that were less dramatic: “He noticed that [Louie] was manically germophobic, washing his hands over and over again…Louie had slipped into alcoholism, [and] had hatched a wild scheme to kill a man,” (365). The interesting thing about all of these harmful changes that Louie goes through is that there is a logical explanation for all of them that relate right back to his time in World War II: for example, Louie becomes an obsessive germaphobe because he was never clean in the war. Louie is also drinking to hide from nightmares of the horrible camp Commander, nicknamed ‘The Bird’, and is planning to kill for the same reason, all of which comes directly from his unique experience in the war. Everything that Louie goes through after he is supposedly ‘safe at home’ gives incredible and undeniable evidence towards the suffering that comes from war. Alternately, there are those who find comfort after a war in the thankful and happy, if sometimes oblivious, attitudes of the friends and family that they left behind.   

After fighting in a war, there are also those who come home to find peace of mind and a pride in their past, something that they achieve because of the satisfaction they feel from doing something beneficial for others. According to Dan Ziff of the PTSD Clinical Team for a Pittsburg veteran’s hospital, the soldiers who experience a generally positive reaction to their life in war after they return home are those with “a supportive family and an understanding employer.” Veterans with this love from their family and friends are more likely to remember and dwell upon the positive things that they have done and that have been done to them, instead of the negative. Those who can find comfort in the positivity instead of focusing on the many negative experiences are less likely to be destroyed by the horrors of their experience. This is evident because “The U.S. Army is planning to require that all 1.1 million of its soldiers take intensive training in positive psychology and emotional resiliency,” (Levine). To do this will be an expensive and large scale endeavor which would not be undertaken if there was not great value in it. Of course, our attempts to help veterans find positive thinking and to see good in what they have done, is why we have a holiday called Veteran’s Day. This mindset that soldiers ought to be celebrated by us, which is so helpful and important in the rehabilitation of a soldier, is articulated beautifully by newspaper writer Elmer Davis, who, in one of his articles states, “This nation will remain the land of the free, only so long as it is the home of the brave.” In this quotation, it is again very powerfully promoted that we need soldiers, we depend on them, and knowledge of this fact can help veterans accept their past and move on with pride in what they have done for their community. In this way, with love and support, a veteran can find the truth of pride in their experiences in war. While there are a fair amount of people who find pride in their duty in war after the fact, only a small group of people recognize peace of mind in war while they are in the midst of one.

Very few are those who spend their time in battle thinking about what they are doing for the rest of their country, but those who have this capability, find comfort, confidence and acceptance within themselves. This is something that was studied very recently for the first time, the results concluded that “the more stressful the combat situation, the more important [hopefulness, optimism, and ego resilience] became,” (Henion). Along the same line of thought, when any average person is sure of what they’re doing, sure that it’s the ‘right’ thing to do; there is a different essence about them, a human trait that can logically be assumed of soldiers. For any man or woman with such a mindset, there would also be a confidence and an easy ‘wherever the wind blows’ kind of attitude. This is something that would be incredibly unusual in war, but, would almost certainly decrease the amount of panic, fear, uncertainty, and pressure that a soldier feels on a daily basis in any war, this is clearly shown by the test results that are given in the above quotation. This would certainly be a difficult state of mind to achieve, as so many of the things that happen in war are trying to get people to lose all comfort and confidence. Yet, when it is possible for a soldier to remember why they are where they are and doing what they are doing, fear is surely replaced by reason and security. In The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien the character Sam pronounces a reflective thought on his and Frodo’s quest, while they are still in the middle of it: “But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on” (719). In this quote, Sam really makes the point that those who turn back from war, hardship and suffering aren’t remembered, that those who are taught, talked about, known by the world, and respected are those who have persevered. Sam also reiterates the point that bravery and pushing forward through adversity is both noble and important, a fact that soldiers who keep perspective and pride throughout their experiences in a war, know and understand. This is perhaps the most few and far between truth of war for a soldier, and yet one that surely many aspire to. While there is little we as a country can do to help soldiers find comfort in the midst of fighting, there is much we can do to let our heroic men and women know how much we value them.

There are many truths of war for a soldier, some prideful and others sorrowful; all changing the soldier for the rest of their existence. It is very clear that in this day and age we would be in a very different place without our soldiers protecting us and our country. Honestly, without them fighting in the Revolutionary War; we would not even have a nation to protect. We ought to do more to honor our veterans, for knowing how much we appreciate what they have gone through for us, can help to oppose Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, help soldiers to find pride, and see the good that has come out of their actions and hardships. As a country, we should also go to every extent to protect our soldiers in POW camps and on the field. There should also be a more universal effort to help our protectors to rehabilitate after they return home, for in some places there is still a stigma about soldiers reaching out for help and support. Every soldier’s experiences in war are different, depending on their personality, the war in which they are fighting, their station in the army, if they ever end up seeing any action, and, quite simply, their luck. All of these things come together to create the picture that a soldier sees when he or she looks at war. The ultimate truth of war for a soldier is that it is a multilayered and unique experience for every person; as it should be, for every warrior on a battlefield or in a POW camp is utterly individual and complex in their own right