They say war can bring out the worst in people, but it also exposes the worse people. Hopefully these men are locked away forever, but that’s besides the point. You cannot convince me that any conflict that results in war couldn’t have been resolved a different way. You cannot convince me. There’s always an alternative. And when innocent people have to suffer at the hands of bloodthirsty intervals, why not search long and hard for that alternative before you send our people to war, and condemn innocent people to death.
I for one know that I’d never join the military voluntarily, for a many number of reasons. The only scenarios that could bring me to war are a National Draft, or if the people that I love and care about most were murdered by an enemy. I’m naturally not a violent person. My mother told me she never heard me raise my voice. I’ve never started a fight in my life, though I’ve played the violent sport of football since I was young. I cannot comprehend what would provoke another human being to commit such a heinous act on another human being, lot alone a child…A CHILD!
Very disturbing to read. The first two pages of the article alone make you want to stop reading. Make you want to forget. Make you want to continue on with your life as it was before you started reading; but that is easier said than done. As hard as it was to read an account on such a despicable act of mankind, it is nothing in comparison as to what it must have been like to live through it, or rather, die through it. The boy died in rags, alone, unarmed, and confused. That father saw his son in a pool of blood, murdered at the hands of my countries “heroes”. I couldn’t imagine seeing a friend like that, even an acquaintance, let alone my child. I’d rather die myself than experience that. So, supporters of war, do you really support this?
For the rest of us it could be a number of things: A soul mate; a lawsuit; a trip to Burger King. Whenever our realization happens really depends on how far off base we are in the first place. Some will never even have one, even being raised from birth or dying a certain way. All that’s true is that if we don’t learn to see way the way C does, we might have some answering to do in the next life.
Besides the obvious factors of videos, television, movies, and any other type of media outlet, what other influences, big or small, may there be in why men construct a certain view about women. Is it because men are taller than women? Is it because a women’s basketball is smaller than a males? Is it because a softball field is way smaller than a baseball field? Is it because when two people are married, man comes before wife? Is it because they are introduced as Mr. and Mrs.? Who knows what tiny instances or details cause certain people to feel certain ways. When it comes to the obvious: pornography, music videos, and pretty much on MTV, it’s easy to see why some men have truly lost touch with what women want. But how do we become able to see things the same way C now does?
Who came first? Adam. Who came second? Eve. From that point on, in many cultures across space and time, women have often been looked at as second class citizens. Whether it has been the fight for a voice, the fight for the right to vote, the fight for equal wages, or even the fate for respect, women have historically had a tougher time getting ahead and sharing the same advantages in this world that men have. We talked about this in class not long ago, when talking about women in music videos. Why is it that many men look at women as objects to be used, rather than to be loved, or even respected? Why is it that it takes some men lifetimes to see the errors in their thinking? Why is it that some men never do? In C’s case, it took incarceration – permanent incarceration. But he did finally see the deficits in his thinking. Now how can we?
Since a lot of us haven’t seen this side of humanity for ourselves, we can’t truly emphasize with these individuals, even if we want to. Jeff, the soldier from the video that took his life, is just one of many soldiers who have lost their lives after the fighting was done. Because for soldiers who have undergone unparalleled mental strain, the real war started for them when they got back home. We can’t understand the nightmares that drive some of them to suicide. The night terrors that keep them up at night. The terrible guilt that can only be rid of by ending their own lives. We can’t understand, so many of us don’t embrace, just as we’ve always done.
The experiences of killing and seeing death occur are something that all the vets from the video have seen. I have never seen somebody get killed. I’ve seen my grandfather die…naturally. I’ve never seen a mangled body. I’ve never seen the mangled body of a child. I’ve never seen a child dead. Period. Most of you who are reading this haven’t. The experiences that these men have gone through has completely changed the way they look at the world. They now live in a different reality then the one they thought existed when they were kids. They’ve seen the ugly side of war. They’ve seen the ugly side of humanity. And it is weighing on them.
Throughout human history the strange and foreign have always been met with a sense of uneasiness and fear. Whether it was the first humans dealing with fire, wild animals, and each other. Or the first settlers who came across the Native Americans. Or even Major League Baseball when Jackie Robinson and company came into the league. Whatever the case, we’ve always either downcast the strange and unusual or have just tried to outcast them from society all together. In class today we watched a video on war vets who are suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Though this is definitely a known problem in our society, it is not a particular popular subject, mostly because it deals with something that isn’t understood or comprehendible by the general population.
As a juror, I know it would be hard to side with R, especially without the backing of his siblings. He could have fabricated the whole story just as a means to give himself a motive, a reason, an obsession just crazy enough to make everyone see why what he did had to be done. The fact that R’s life even came to point were the thought of killing his parents was constantly in his head is a tragedy. None of us can cast stones at him because if what he says is true, almost all of us can’t even come close to relating to him. Sociologically speaking, R never had a chance
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Contraption