I was very intrigued by our WW1 studies, and the documentaries made it all seem so interesting. Since we all know movies and documentaries aren't always accurate of what really happened, I want to give my classmates a chance to see for themselves with WW1 veteran's personal stories. Documentaries and especially movies can romanticize war and make people think that it is not as intense as it really is. Even though they project the "war is hell" and show people getting killed, I nor a few of my classmates feel that they can accurately depict the emotions of the soldiers and emphasize the reality of war. The first person's story I will transcribe and paraphrase is by William J. Lake, a man who encountered a German sniper at the Meuse - Argonne known as the deadliest battle in American history. Rubin asks, "what was it like when you [William J. Lake] got to the front?". Lake describes bullets zipping all over near your head, it was not if you get hit but when, and Lake was very lucky to survive. Later he describes that he was sitting with another man, and a German sniper shot him, but not Lake. How Lake felt was extreme guilt, he wondered what if the sniper had picked him instead? Imagine yourself in Lake's position, being that close to death.
The next story I will retell is one told by Richard Tobin, a man who was sent above the trench. Quote, “As soon as you got over the top, fear has left you and it is terror. You don’t look, you see. You don’t hear, you listen. Your nose is filled with fumes and death. You taste the top of your mouth... You’re hunted back to the jungle. The veneer of civilization has dropped away.” (telegraph.co.uk). I think this quote describes a lot more than documentaries and movies.
In documentaries, we see dramatized videos of Woodrow Wilson, unclear footage of battles, and pictures. I believe the best way to learn about what happened is to get a primary source. These are a few examples of stories of WW1 veterans, and if you are interested you can research more.
These accounts of veterans from WW1 and other wars in general also intrigue me as well. But there is one question that bothers me a lot. Before going to a war, I assume that the majority of people who are in the army have feelings, but when they're in the battle field, they literally become emotionless and see the enemies as objects they needed to kill in order to win. What's the psychological reasoning behind this?
ReplyDeleteI would imagine that they reason the soldiers tended to seem emotionless on the battlefield was for a few reasons. I think that a lot of soldiers had to kind of disassociate from what they were doing in order to keep what little sanity they could retain through the war, whether that was through conscious effort or not probably depended on the person. That, coupled with the adrenaline keeping them from processing their wounds properly made them pretty ideal killing machines for their respective governments that were forced to face death day in and day out.
DeleteThese accounts of WW1 veterans seem very intense. It almost seems as though they have become absolutely empty inside. I think that in order to survive in that kind of environment, it is important that you are able to adapt to that mindset, however. It would be nearly impossible to survive in an environment with such violence if you let your emotions take over and influence your actions. In WW1, survival was the only goal, and it was almost everyman for themselves.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your idea that the only real way we can get a sense of war is from war veterans themselves. I think a problem in the way these veterans were enlisted was wrong. They were tricked into thinking that war would be glorious and they would be heros. If the American's would have been shown what war was like before they went, they most likely would not have wanted to go.
ReplyDeleteThe deaths in World War I definitely took a toll on millions of people. Even if you were not killed in war, I cannot imagine being that close to death while watching my comrades die around me. And as a result of this, many soldiers did suffer from PTSD after the war. Every nation was suffering from the war, and it is known as one the deadliest wars in United States history. But compared to other countries, the United States had suffered a less significant loss, so it is almost impossible to understand what those countries had gone through.
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