Making Sense of War

I am convinced that war leaves permanent and unchangeable memories etched in one's brain.

My grandpa, who is 89 years old, was a navigator on a B-29 in the Pacific theater of World War Two. Although my grandpa could not tell you what he had for lunch earlier that day, he could tell you with certainty the direction and velocity of the wind on a specific bombing mission. He could tell you how many pounds of firebombs he dropped on a specific target and how many times his crew had to land the plane with only one engine. However, these facts almost always come out in a random non-chronological order that does not flow as any form of a story.

I would venture to say that this is because when one is in war, it does not always make sense. Everything is happening with such rapidness and panic that one can not possibly carefully observe and take everything in without being killed.

Perhaps this is what Vonnegut is trying to portray in Slaughterhouse-Five. The choppy story that skips from day to day and year to year is perhaps an attempt to explain how the experiences of war are remembered. To go even further, perhaps Vonnegut is trying to show how live is perceived after being in a war.

In any case, I believe that Vonnegut's unconventional writing style is an attempt to give the reader a similar experience to the main character, because no amount of description could accurately portray it.

The Complexity of War

Although our playing Risk is not the most enlightening activity when it comes to learning about war, I believe it does shed a different light on the topic.

First of all, it allows us see how complex war is. Even with the relatively simple bored game, we all struggled to remember the rules and basic strategies. Imagine how complex the actual thing is.

Second, we hesitate to attack when all we put at risk is our position and small wooden pieces. The stress that a commander is under when they give an order that could affect the outcome of a war or determine whether hundreds or thousands of people could live or die must be indescribable.

Lastly, even the jokingly aggressive remarks that we make towards teammates when they roll low numbers is indicative of the internal strife that can so readily erupt within an army.

Based on these three ideas, I believe that it is not within our ability to judge Longstreet and Lee in the worth as leaders. Given our general lack of understanding for basic warfare strategy in addition to our lack of relative leadership experience, we do not have the knowledge nor the insight to judge these two highly ranked leaders. The complexity of war, the various factors that go into each decision being made, and the internal strife that can erupt so easily within an army are just three ideas that show that although we may be able to give opinions about each man depending on the book Killer Angels, we are not in the right to judge them.

Inherently Human?

We have been discussing a lot in class about what causes war. I our debate the other day about whether war was an inherent part of human nature, religious / ethnic differences, necessity (i.e. resources), defense (retaliation), and imperialism were all brought up as possible reasons for starting a war. Real world examples of the initiators include:

Religious / Ethnic Differences: Israeli - Palestinian Conflict
Defense: Americas responds to the attack on Pearl Harbor by entering WWII
Imperialism: Ottoman Empire spreads through Europe
Necessity: Iraq Invades Kuwait for oil

I know these are probably not the best example but they are the ones that I am most familiar with.

As you can see, these example spawn from very early in history to only fifty years ago. Therefore, these factors have clearly been with us for most of our history. The question still remains however, is this an inherent quality of humans?

First of all, I can not answer this question and I don't think anyone can absolutely, because no one knows what the nature of the first human was. However, I would say that it is an inherent quality of ours to be superior to others. Do not take this to be a negative connotation. In a biological viewpoint, it is a survival mechanism. In the modern world, it may give us the edge in getting good grades or attaining a job. So how do we settle disputes if humans strive to be better than one another? War. War is a medium in which one side WILL lose and one side WILL win, and thus it is often times the most efficient way of getting conflicts resolved.

Therefore, humans do not inherently wage war, but rather war is the most efficient medium with which to attain supremacy, which is inherently human.