War Is Not The Answer

5 Pages 1284 Words

In the coming weeks, it is becoming more and more likely that the United States of America will declare war on Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi nation. Whether this is a wise decision on President Bush’s behalf will be learned in the war’s aftermath. However, we as a nation must realize one undeniable consequence of the potential war. Thousands of American and Iraqi soldiers will be put in harm’s way and those that are not will suffer much mental anguish from their experiences. Although there may be nothing physically wrong with many soldiers, this war is like any other in history in that in addition to the many casualties, thousands of soldiers will be mentally scarred. With this in mind, the key question that we as a people should be asking ourselves is: Will the ends justify the means? Is the disarmament of Iraq more important than the well being of thousands of soldiers? This war should not be fought for our soldiers as well as Iraq’s soldiers will be physically and mentally scarred for no clear reason.
War has proven to have a large impact on soldiers and nine times out of ten it is for the worse. One example of this simple fact can be found in the novel, The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien. In the story, Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong, a soldier by the name of Mark Fossie ships his girlfriend out to Vietnam. “They were very much in love, full of dreams, and in the ordinary flow of their lives the whole scenario might well have come true” (94). O’Brien describes Mary Anne Bell as having a “bubbly personality, a happy smile.” However, as time went on, Fossie and the others began to notice a change in the young girl. As before Mary Anne would be considered a girly girl in that she was always concerned about her personal hygiene and how she looked, she was now a completely different girl. “No cosmetics, no fingernail filing. She stopped wearing jewelry, cut her hair short and wrapped it in a da...