War: (huuuuuuuh) What Is It Good For

Say it again, y'all...


The more memoirs I read for this class the more I realize how little I know about war.  I grew up in America and, less one semester I spent experiencing first-hand Berlusconi riots, have lived here all my life.  The media is constantly inundating us with images of war.  TV shows portray what it is like to be a soldier.  Movies capitalize on attempting to convey what it is to live through war...after war...everything.  I consume all of these things.  I love books, and TV, and films and have absorbed a plethora of information about how people say war is.  That said, I should clarify that not all of the information I get is from fictional imaginings.  And yet, I still cannot grasp what war is.  Obviously, at a rudimentary level, I understand that there are sides and opposing views and, in theory, an objective which, upon achieving, will determine a winner. 

Perhaps it's because the war that is going on in my life time is less cut and dry.  Perhaps, it's because my experiences with war and soldiers are primarily *based* on real people and events, but not actually *the* real people.  Perhaps, I was raised more hippie than I realized.  Whatever the case may be, the more I read these memoirs about war and the life of a soldier, the more I realize how not systematic everything is.  I believe David called it a "cluster fuck."  That feels about right. 

When Orwell is describing that people didn't even have GUNS, I was flabbergasted.  How?  HOW?  That seems like the minimal requirement for a soldier.  If you do not have guns, you literally just have a human...and a poorly trained, confused youth does not a soldier make.  Every element just seemed like from all levels, they were inadequately prepared.  Mentally, physically...guns...they didn't have guns.  And, the guns that the did eventually get barely even functioned. 

I am glad that I am reading all these memoirs about war.  It is an interesting and vital perspective.  I thought that I would understand war better after reading so much on first-hand accounts, but I'm realizing now that my original notion may have been scarily accurate.  War is not clear-cut.  Nothing is guaranteed.  Manana.  There are rules and regulations but, at the end of the day it's war; there are no rules and regulations.  You fight, however you can when you can and where you can...and, in the end, you just hope for the best.





Also, as a gem that I found in this book, I loved that when Orwell was shot in the neck and people kept telling him people who lived who were shot through the neck were the luckiest people in the world...and he said that it would've been more lucky to never have been shot.  That is gold.