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    Essay 3

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    Sha'nattu Makju Ka'umn O'ton
    1) The document discusses the psychological and philosophical impact of warfare on military veterans, arguing that the true stories of veterans are rarely heard. 2) It describes how combat requires soldiers to suppress their humanity and emotions to survive, which takes a toll on their mental health when they return home. 3) The author posits that humanity inherently has both peaceful and destructive impulses, and that accepting our true nature, including its ugliness, is how we can ultimately triumph over tragedy.

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    Essay 3

    Uploaded by

    Sha'nattu Makju Ka'umn O'ton
    15 views3 pages
    1) The document discusses the psychological and philosophical impact of warfare on military veterans, arguing that the true stories of veterans are rarely heard. 2) It describes how combat requires soldiers to suppress their humanity and emotions to survive, which takes a toll on their mental health when they return home. 3) The author posits that humanity inherently has both peaceful and destructive impulses, and that accepting our true nature, including its ugliness, is how we can ultimately triumph over tragedy.

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    1) The document discusses the psychological and philosophical impact of warfare on military veterans, arguing that the true stories of veterans are rarely heard. 2) It describes how combat requires soldiers to suppress their humanity and emotions to survive, which takes a toll on their mental health when they return home. 3) The author posits that humanity inherently has both peaceful and destructive impulses, and that accepting our true nature, including its ugliness, is how we can ultimately triumph over tragedy.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as ODT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as odt, pdf, or txt
    15 views3 pages

    Essay 3

    Uploaded by

    Sha'nattu Makju Ka'umn O'ton
    1) The document discusses the psychological and philosophical impact of warfare on military veterans, arguing that the true stories of veterans are rarely heard. 2) It describes how combat requires soldiers to suppress their humanity and emotions to survive, which takes a toll on their mental health when they return home. 3) The author posits that humanity inherently has both peaceful and destructive impulses, and that accepting our true nature, including its ugliness, is how we can ultimately triumph over tragedy.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as ODT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as odt, pdf, or txt
    of 3

    Jones1 Ronnie Jones Mr.

    Panizari English 121

    The Tragedy of Triumph


    A psychological,philosophical collision on the minds,bodies and hearts of military Veterans

    Often, we see movies and television portray valiant and brave men, and women serving their country proudly by joining the armed forces. We grow up with these iconic images or bravery, duty, honor and courage. However, we never really understand these things, we accept them as part of our cultural heritage as something we ought to do.This may be the image shown to us, but we never really go beyond the social interest of the idea Fighting For our Freedom, or the justification of our form of righteousness. Just underneath the surface, under all the Uncle Sam posters, in the minds of men and women who were there is the real story that few get to hear. No cameras needed, no publicity stunts, only real emotion, real thoughts and real feelings from those who were there, these are the military Vets. The real heroes that we have been looking for, those who have seen tragedy and despair first hand, and those who can tell us first hand, how and why we failed, not as a country, but as Humans beings. Our story, us as a nation is not complete with this unwritten records, without the real story, how can we grow? How can we learn? How can we triumph over tragedy?

    Jones 2

    The tragedy of Warfare is not combat, but the realization that we have failed at peace once more. The necessity for action is a given, but something happens to those men and women in such a way, that every last vestige of their humanity is pulled and strained to the limit. Combat!, brings you close with the ugly side of humanity, first there is inspiration in which gets you there first, then the reality of what you have to do sets in. Lastly, the decision to cut off your emotions is essential to gain the edge in battle, regretting this will only lead to weakness in action. Unfortunately these are the real life scenarios which must go through the minds of our military personal in combative situations.

    These scenarios become memories, which, become movies which are played for months, years and sometimes lifetimes. Something that we hold dear to us is our humanity, and thus we send our supposed loved ones into harms way, asking them to give up the very thing they will come back to. The real life stories of what happens becomes life, life that one becomes used to, life that one accepts as something that happened. Stated by one soldier ,"We were tuned in and turned on. When we came back, they forgot to turn us off," says Glenn Boche of South St. Paul, who was drafted in 1969 and served in the infantry that inspired Oliver Stone's 1986 film "Platoon.". There are other statements that rings true as well, "We were damned before we went over there, damned while we were over there, damned when we came back," Boche says. "I didn't burn any villages down. I didn't rape any kids. When someone needed to be shot, I shot at them. That's the nature of war."

    Jones 3

    Most often when soldiers comes back, the switch does not turn off, it's a new level of life, perhaps this is the nature of survival, raw, ugly and real. Yet, we seem to whitewash, cover-over, and convince ourselves that this doesn't exist anymore, this primal nature is our survival instinct just in another form. Though we want to believe we are civilized (to some extent) we still show our true colors, this is just what humanity is, and perhaps that's the point! Perhaps the brutality, beauty, love, peace, compassion, hatred, ulgyness was the entire point that we are missing. It may seem strange, but when we think about this in logical terms, man and the cosmos, everything is insane. Why not humanity?

    Sociologists, psychologists and philosophers alike have long debated the possible existence of destructive, war-like impulses as something inherently a part of the human condition. Is there something innate, inherent, and festering within mans genetic code waiting for the proper forum to be unleashed in destructive and devastating ways? Are we hard-wired with the drive to destroy our fellow man prior to any sort of provocation? Dewey, John. Human Nature and Conduct. The Modern Library: New York, 1957.

    Nature, which we praise and glorify as majestic and beautiful, also spans hurricanes, twister, tornadoes, earthquakes, Forrest fires, tsunamis and a bunch of other fun filled activity to get evolution on it's schedule. The story of military veterans is an untold chapter in human history on the forgotten parts of ourselves in which we are ashamed of, yet that very nature when call on assist us at the most basic level, and prepares us the the insane natural world that we live in. Finally the triumph of tragedy is through acceptance, acceptance of our own nature, and perhaps still that was the tragedy, not seeing ourselves no matter how ugly or beautiful.

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