Rites of Spring

After reading Rites of Spring and Soldier’s Home, you can begin to see connections between the two stories. In Rites of Spring, you see the more gruesome side of World War 1 and the things the soldiers went through in the trenches. In Soldier’s Home, you see how the war affected the soldiers when they returned home. By reading these two stories together, you are able to connect them together. Many people do not actually see the effects that war has on a soldier when they return home. Many times a soldier is not able to adapt back into society after experiencing the things he would experience during war. In Rites of Spring, Modris Eksteins shows you the gruesome acts of war not only between the people fighting one another but also the things that happened when there was no fighting. Even though the story talks about World War 1, there are still similar instances in our wars that occur today. In Soldier’s Home, you see how a soldier tries to get back into civilian life after returning home from World War 1. He struggles to connect with people including his own mother. The story talks about when he is telling some stories of things he experienced during the war to some of his acquaintances and how they were not entertained by them. This shows that the soldier had a hard time coming back home and connecting with people that were not in the war. It also talks about how the soldier did not want to find normal work. This shows that when a soldier returns home, sometimes it is difficult for them to do just any kind of job. Many need the sense of adrenaline that they received while they were fighting. These two stories connect with one another in a way that helps the reader understand what could be going through a soldier’s mind. Not many people actually experience going off to war and fighting for their life. So when those people return home, how do we expect them to act like everything is normal? War changes a person in many ways that the public cannot always physically see. It not only affects how the soldier reacts in public places surrounded by people, it also affects them in their own home when no one is around. Without giving these soldiers help, we are hurting their chances of returning to a semi-normal life once they are both back from a war or out of the military. By giving them help and allowing them to return to a routine, we can keep these soldiers from potentially harming themselves or others. 

Trina Dupre Blog 1

In the two articles we were assigned in class, both had points that could be tied back to Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden. In the first article, it talks about the single casualty and the successful mission that took place in Iraq. This can be connected to Black Hawk Down by using the points of what we consider a successful mission. In the article, only one American soldier was killed during the mission and the people they were going in to capture was done successfully. In the end some of the prisoners were set free, but the mission was still considered a success. In Black Hawk Down, the mission that was carried out was also considered a success. The people we went in for were captured and taken where they needed to be. Unfortunately, many of American soldiers died during this mission. Were the lives that were lost worth the few men that were captured during the mission? Should we have considered it a “successful” mission? Most of the information that received in both missions was described by the soldiers taking part in the mission. There was no definite information coming from a completely reliable source. Not saying the soldiers are not reliable, but their view on what happened is altered because of all of the adrenaline and the fact that they must focus solely on completing the mission and staying alive.

In the first article, it also mentions the precision in which they executed the mission by cutting off the roads and removing the people they were after. The way they precisely handled the mission helped in having fewer casualties in the end. In Black Hawk Down, there was the idea of a precise mission, but ended up being a fight for your life situation. In the end, each mission is different in how precise it was handled. There are many different factors that contribute to how well the mission can be carried out. For instance, if the people in the city want the soldiers there, how good the information was from their informant, and many other things.

The second article talks about the different problems with communication throughout history in the military. The use of hot air balloons as a way to see the area that the battle was taking place was used during the Civil War. Over time, they came up with a system using flags that could be confusing and misinterpreted during a battle. The system that is used nowadays with the military might be less difficult to use but it still has its flaws. In Black Hawk Down, one of the major problems was the disorganized communication. Orders were given to late, many of the men were not communicating with one another, and it was always like playing a game of telephone. This in the end hindered the mission by putting the men in bad situations without a way to get out of them. Even though there were problems with the communication, there are not many viable solutions that can be used to fix the problem. Until we can come up with a solution that does not break the chain of command and does not delay the time the messages are sent to one another, there will always be a problem with the communication.