This is the last blog for our class. In recent ASTU class, we focused our attention on the Iraq War. Poems written by Julian Spahr and the first story in Phil Klay’s book Redeployment which has a same name as the big title were read and discussed in class. We have already looked at several literature works that talks about wars and conflicts all over the world including the World War 1, the Bosnia War and the 9/11. Those works reflect the trauma borne by people who experience the event, and I want to discusses more on this topic.
In my History class, we also learned about the war. The topic of lectures in last week was the Second World War. The professor shared the general structure of World War 2 and the enormous impact it had on the whole world. He claimed the war as a war on civilians since unaccountable number of people who were not involved in the army or military services were killed during the Second World War. The context of History class reminds me of what we studied about the internment of American or Canadian Japanese during the First World War talked by Joy Kogawa in Obasan and millions of people died in Bosnia War shown in the book Safe Area Gorazde by Joe Sacco. History provides us with number that directly represent how many lives we lost in the war and shocks us by the unbelievable huge figure and the realistic recording of the unforgettable traumatic memory. Literature works, in another way, use language and details to make the readers feel being in the same situation and experience the unspeakable trauma. Besides speaking out the unspeakability and the grief, they also push readers to rethink the war and conflicts through looking at their words.
This week’s study tended to pay attention to a group of people who also suffered from the war, the soldiers. Almost all the literature works mentioned in previous paragraphs portraying the misery experienced by what my History professor said the civilians. The story of Redevelopment describes how the soldiers who came back from the front line got the unspeakable disconnection with the world. They found themselves uncomfortable to life before they went to the war, and what they experienced was something no one could feel unless taking part in the war. The soldiers usually suffered from psychological disorder called the post-traumatic stress disorder. I also read about PTSD in my Psychology class. Compared with other types of disorders, it last much longer and had a quite high rate among soldiers who redeployed from the war. Redeployment provides people another view of point to think about the impact caused by the war. Not only killing innocent civilians, but also destructing the life of soldiers who contributed their lives into the war.
