11/9/2015

Starting off, I had a really hard time following “Rites of Spring,” by Modris Eksteins. To me, the story was very choppy and hard to follow. The only thing I really got out of this reading is that it was talking about the horrors of war, the act itself, and how gruesome war really is at first hand. The second reading, “Soldier’s Home,” was very strange and sad. This story showed the other end of war when the soldiers return home. Being in a place where there is nothing but gunfire and death around can really mess with someone’s head. Going from the intense training, living conditions, and seeing friends die, to being thrown back into to normal society is not easy to adjust to. To me these stories are important to read together because it shows both aspects of war, the soldier during the war, and a soldier going back home after the war.

               “Soldier’s Home” really got to me at the end when he told his mom that he did not love her. He had been so emotionally stripped during his training and during the war that he could not feel for her, or anyone for that matter. He was so emotionally distant from everyone he came in contact with. He even repeated over and over again that the war had made him this way, this is how he was trained. Their training does not just go away when they return home, it stays with them forever. Very few soldiers can turn it on and off like a switch, but for others it is a big adjustment to have to go from war, blood, and death to family, friends and love.

               In “Rites of Spring,” Modris Eksteins talks in detail about battles themselves. Eksteins describes battles and how many people had lost their lives and how bloody the battle field would end up, and so quickly. Hundreds of thousands of people were losing their lives, and that can not be easy to be a part of. Looking back and thinking about a war they were involved in and realizing just how many people had lost their lives due to a battle that they were apart of can not be easy to think about. They could have just as easily been one of those thousands of soldiers lying dead on the ground.

               If someone were to read “Soldier’s Home” first, or all by itself, they would probably have no sympathy or try to give any excuse to the soldier’s attitude and disconnect. Reading “Rites of Spring” along with “Soldier’s Home,” helps the reader make a direct connection between the two. This way the reader can easily see that these soldiers go through a lot and not all of them come back the same. Their personality and behavior have changed drastically due to what they go through when they are in war, and due to the fact that they are trained to think and act completely different than any civilian on the street.

Connections to Black Hawk Down

Critical thinking skills are very important to understand and know how to do when comparing one source to another. Being able to think critically allows the researcher to better understand what it is they are reading as a whole, as well as pick out deeper meanings within the text that a surface reader wouldn’t normally see. Making connections between multiple texts allows for a better argument, based on the fact that the researcher shows that they are knowledgeable on the topic and that they can easily tie in multiple sources to get their point across in an effective way. On October 22, 2015, Michael R. Gordon wrote an article, “U.S. Soldier Dies in Raid to Free Prisoners of ISIS in Iraq,” that talks about how “a member of a United States special operations team was killed… during a raid to rescue Islamic State hostages” (Gordon). In Mark Bowden’s Black Hawk Down, a humanitarian mission in Somalia went terribly wrong when multiple members of Special Forces lost their lives. These two sources have many similarities in means of context.

Gordon’s article talks about how there was one casualty during the mission to free prisoners that were held by Islamic forces. This mission’s casualty might not have been to the extent as the one seen in Black Hawk Down, but both of these missions involved members of a United States’ special force to lose their lives. Special Forces are called in on very serious and cautious missions, like the two talked about in Black Hawk Down and “U.S. Soldier Dies in Raid to Free Prisoners of ISIS in Iraq.” Not only did these missions use Special Forces, they also used two different threads of forces. In Black Hawk down, the Delta Boys and the Rangers were brought in to work together on the mission in Somalia, and in “U.S. Soldier Dies in Raid to Free Prisoners of ISIS in Iraq,” Gordon explains that there were also two different forces brought in, Kurdish Commandos and American Special Operations. Having two very distinct groups of military forces helps to make a better outcome. Both forces share the same basic knowledge of military training, but have different tactics and special training from one another. Bringing in two groups that think differently will most likely make for a better outcome; this way they get a different way of viewing things and incorporate those ideas to complete the mission.

Another idea that is shared between these two articles is that they both used different forms of combat throughout the mission. Both missions used means of ground force and air force to get the job done in an effective way. Using helicopters helps with surveillance to see what is going on with the ground forces. When in the helicopter, they can see what a person on the ground can’t. This way, whoever is in the air can warn ground forces where the enemy is and even eliminate the enemy before it even gets to the people on the ground. If one is going to use air and ground forces, communication is going to be key in order to be effective.