There are some truths in life that few are able to dispute. I feel that one of those truths is that war is as close to hell as one can get. A place where everything is turned upside down. A place where everything is backwards. A place where the ability to make any sense of what’s happening is a luxury. The power of war is perhaps one of the greatest, but what I find intriguing is the manner in which soldiers deal with it.
Soldiers fighting in the First World War, like Rupert Brooke and John McCrae, seem to deal with war in a romantic way. They glorify and stress the honor and integrity of it all with sweeping abstracts like in the sixth and seventh lines of John McCrae’s, In Flanders Fields: “We are the dead; short days ago/ We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow”. Beautiful as those words may be, I find it hard to think of a glowing sunset when discussing the topic of death. I can only assume that these glorious portrayals aren’t entirely accurate due to the fact that so many others, commenting on the same events, wrote from a much different perspective. In Arms and the Boy, Wilfred Owen eloquently describes the destination of a bullet in lines five and six, “Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-leads/ Which long to nuzzle in the hearts of lads.” This represents the backwardness of war that Owen undoubtedly saw.
But I am forced to ask myself, what images lurk in his conscience to conjure up the idea of a bullet nuzzling in the heart of a young man? What images lurk in others who see similar things? How can one deal with this after being in a war? How can one deal with this during a war? Luckily for appreciators of poetry, Owen and others shared their thoughts and brought awareness to many who may have never had it. Today military blogs act in a similar way. I read a very interesting story about a U.S. soldier who posted a blog about his experience training the Afghan Army. The soldier talked of one instance in which a few Afghanis “duck into a local shop and sip tea as bullets are whizzing past. Some even began eating lunch from their firing positions.” He then goes on to say, “The eating wasn’t even the funny part, The funny part was how much they were enjoying the food and the camaraderie under the circumstances.” This shows another instance in which soldiers are forced to find some sort of comfort in such a horrific situation. To be able to find amusement or relaxation during a firefight boggles my mind, then again I have never been in such a situation and can’t possibly pretend to understand it.
Perhaps all a soldier can do when they are put into a world turned upside down is pretend that they aren’t there. Pretend its okay and the bullets aren’t real. Pretend that they know how each engagement will end. Just pretend. What else is a soldier to do?
In Today’s Army, The GI Diary Is Written In Tweets
By: Kevin Whitelaw
http://www.wbur.org 9/15/2009
History Repeats Itself 
One reason I think these Afghanistan soldiers are so immune to the horrors of war can be attributed to the lack of stability in the region in the past. Even as children they are often recruited into armies or other various militant groups. An American soldier, however, does not have that “luxury” if I may call it that. Unless they come from a neighborhood ruled by gangs or the streets of Detroit, most Americans grow up with a peaceful existence sheltered from such horrors. I agree with you that all there is for a soldier to do in the eye of danger is to shrug it off and in some cases go on with business as usual. It would be very counterproductive to be running around like a chicken with your head cut off screaming at the top of your lungs from fear or sitting in a corner wetting yourself. It is for that reason that I believe many put themselves in what they believe to be an impenetrable box. A shield from what is happening around them. Perhaps if war wasn’t romanticized by people like Brooke’s or McCrae and was instead portrayed in the eyes of Owen humanity could shed ourselves from this nonsensical course of action and seek a more diplomatic solution.