War is... Sacrifice

War is not just a sacrifice in the traditional sense as in life, but war is a sacrifice a physical, emotional, psychological level as well. War is a sacrifice that must be made in order to maintain peace and our way of life. Here in the United states we enjoy a relatively peaceful life. This because we have people who choose to sacrifice potently everything to maintain our way of life. The magnitude of their sacrifices is not truly understood by most people and in many ways I do not think it can be. In part to do with the fact have cause to think about it on a day to day. There is also a reluctance to think about it because it's unpleasant. Tim O'Brien wrote a story that tackled a similar issue in his book The Thing They Carried. The chapter Speaking of Courage, follows Norman Bowker in his readjustment after the war. One large part of this chapter was the townspeople reluctance to ask about his time in the war. Again it comes back to this idea that it's unpleasant to think about the things that happened during the war. There seems to be disconnected in between uniform and the person inside the uniform. Although we recognize understand that people are fighting in war getting killed, there seems to be a “Oh that's happening over there” mentality when talking about war. With the study of war and especially reading The Things They Carried it give a deeper appreciation for the sacrifices that are made. The photo to the left, has a lot of this that tie back to many of the ideas just talked about.  The grain in the photo acts to mute the colors and makes it hard to tell what is happening behind it like a curtain. The grain is like curtain that hide the truth about war. The peace sign is warped roughly in the shape of a skull. It acts a reminder of the sacrifice that have been made, past, present and future.