January 19, 2009
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When in war, do as the warriors do
Hands and eyeballs still fly off in all directions forever
from the unmercy of Vietnam- John Stulett, poem titled, ‘Dick Nixon, I am Lt. John Stulett, US Army, 1st Cav Div.’
Where is the war poetry from Iraq? Where are the war poems of those who were mutilated fighting in Afghanistan?
A generation went to war, lost horribly – bitterly – pitifully – and we could not get enough of it.
A new generation goes to war, and we cannot stand to see news of it.
Comments (9)
I think a huge shift of the attitudes towards war in western society have undergone an giant shift since the advent of television and we became able to see what we’re actually doing to other peoples… over the last 80 years or so? The west has become exhausted by death.
It’s so upsetting to see all these images during war time.
What’s wrong with world peace? ):
I had never thought of that. What else is new?
The troops seem afraid to NOT support this war… I’m not sure what’s going on there.
As for everyone else. Well, it kind of feels like any sort of war poetry, protest noveling, etc. would be too reminiscent of the writing of the ’60s. I did write an anti-Iraq War poem or two. I tried to write a short story. The latter felt like an obvious rip-off of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.
Plus… neo-cons are scary suckers. I’m not sure anyone wants to get on their bad side. That may be cowardly, but these are violent, aggressive times.
interestingly…i have wondered that thought before.
war is so last generation.
wait, that is an awful thing to say.
sanitized violence. gotta love it.
Thank you for raising a very pertinent question
In Vietnam, we had a clear mission and a “noble goal”: defeat the spread of Communism and prevent the fall of the capitalist way of life. Sure, it was bullshit, but only a small few knew that and so it was easy to (in the beginning) raise support. Plus, Vietnam was the first war that allowed us to provide mass media coverage (in the form of television) to the world on a very nearly live basis.
With Iraq however, there was no clear mission and many people felt from the beginning that it was taking us away from our goal of fighting terrorism and finding Bin Laden. Due to what we learned from Vietnam, the people were less willing to accept at face values that agenda put forth by the politicians and began questioning what they were being told from the beginning rather than when the death toll became catastrophic.