War Is... Loss

On the gravestone, the words Innocence, Pride, & Dignity are written. Those words are for every soldier that has gone to war and not come back the same. All of the characteristics that made them, them, has been stripped from them. The gravestone represents death. How permanent it is. How those things that the soldier lost are never coming back. The gravestone also represents both the physical and hypothetical, aspect of loss. Some soldiers never come home. They die in combat, physically and metaphorically. They die metaphorically because they can lose their faith, hope, friends, courage, Innocence, Pride, and Dignity. They can come home with just a shell of their old selves. They die physically by stepping a booby trap or getting shot or from a disease. A soldier can lose his love, also. Like when Mark Fossie brought his girlfriend, Mary Anne, over to Vietnam. He lost her to the war; physically, mentally, and emotionally. She fell more in love with the nature of war rather than her boyfriend whom she has known her whole life. Loss in war is consequential because, it not only affects the soldiers, but also their friends and families. When they lose a limb, it takes a toll first of all on the soldier because, he was born with two legs, but he he is going to have to learn to live without one until the day he dies. It also takes a toll on the families/friends to see their loved one in, both, physical and mental pain. To see them suffer through something that is irreversible. Loss in war is also consequential because, there is also the aspect of if a "team" loses the war, then it will take a financial toll on the country. All of the money and resources that went into making sure the soldiers had what they needed to confront the enemy will go to waste if they lost the war. Loss in war can pertain to anything, but they all have the same results. War is loss; war is destruction.