Last week in ASTU, we talked about an excerpt from Klay’s Redeployment. First of all, I just want to say that before reading and discussing it in class, I’ve had bad impressions of military men because for me, soldiers are tools used by the government to do their dirty work for them.

Second, I want to tell a short story as well. I have met a soldier before in Winnipeg. He told me with pride what he does for a living (probably expecting me to say ‘Thank you for your service’ or be impressed). What I actually said was, “I’m a pacifist, and I don’t think protecting your country is killing other people or going to (invading) other countries.” He’s a good guy, so he told me what most soldiers would say which is, “We need to defeat ISIS. Someone needs to stop ISIS.” I told him, of course, what I think which was murdering innocent people doesn’t stop ISIS. It was a respectful, constructive conversation. Nobody was raising their voice (I’ve told people who are civilians what I think of war before, they usually get mad and think I’m ungrateful and that I should go to war myself). It was very civil. To see and hear a different perspective other than my own is enlightening. However, meeting and talking to him didn’t make me think of the relationship between citizens, who are being protected, and soldiers.

What opened my eyes to this idea is our discussion of Redeployment. I knew that veterans experience PTSD, physical injuries, and other mental issues, but I didn’t think that one of the things that makes it harder for them is the society who’s grateful for their service. I never thought that going home was another war to them.

You’d think they would feel safe in their own home, but being in the army doesn’t actually leave them. In Redeployment, when the narrator and his wife went to the mall, he was thinking like a soldier, expecting someone to attack him out of nowhere.

In Wilmington, you don’t have a squad, you don’t have a battle buddy, you don’t even have a weapon. You startle ten times checking for it and it’s not there. You’re safe, so your alertness should be at white, but it’s not (12).

How should we act when they get back though? Do we just thank them for their service? Do we tell them what we think of war (like I did)? Do we ask them how many innocent people and/or soldiers they’ve killed? What should we do?

I don’t know. I have no answer. But for me, the best we could do is to stop war altogether (taking Butler’s perspective here). Of course, that’s impossible especially if we consider what’s going on right now, politically. But just imagine if there’s no war. We don’t force men and women to kill innocent people and to kill other men and women. They don’t have to be scared for their lives. They don’t have to leave home and go back just to be stuck in a mall waiting for their alertness to be at white (not being alert at all I think… it’s army lingo).

Another option is to do our best to look at things from their perspective. When we empathize with them, we’d understand that they need space.

We can also respect each other’s rights since they’re fighting for our freedom and for democracy, aren’t they?

 

 

 

P.S. This is my last post, and I just want to say I really enjoyed writing and sort of ranting here. Check out my last last post on the ASTU blog on 03/29. I’ll be one of the class bloggers.