The new set of readings assigned for us to read were much different than the last. In ways, I could detect some similarities in comparison to Black Hawk Down, though not many. In fact, throughout the entire time I was reading both of these, I couldn't help but think of the book The Things They Carried. I had to read that book my junior year high school AP English class (ENG 131), and I would absolutely love to use that as a source in my next essay...but I'm conflicted due to the fact that it's fiction. Anyways though, I was most interested in the second short story, "Soldier's Home". When I read this story, I couldn't stop reading. I'm very interested in the way the mind works, so reading this and seeing how a person can change due to war and combat really intrigues me. The little excerpt before the actual story was a conversation I also found very facilitating while we were talking about it in class. The fact that it was explained as "a stream on consciousness" was actually pretty perfect. The fact that he is literally begging for his life to Jesus at this point in combat, promises to express his love for him after this ordeal is over, and never speaks of him again is actually something I related back to everyday life. I see this kind of thing all, the, time. People will say whatever they need to say to get what they need in that single moment, then forget it ever happened. Although, in the case of soldiers, I can completely understand the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder they may be going through afterwards, which is why I love The Things They Carried. How someone can reach the point of telling their own mother that they do not love her is something I could never imagine doing. Yeah, she sort of pushed him over the edge with her clingy ways, but still. It's crazy to me that someone can come home a completely different person than before they left. Now I'm not saying I do not see WHY this is, I just think the mechanics behind it is interesting. In a way, it makes me want to go through some life changing experience to get that different perspective of life. That might not seem like the smartest thing to say, but it's just a thought. The whole PTSD also reminds me heavily of the movie American Sniper. I there has been a lot of controversy over this movie, but I think it's significant. Honestly, I do not see why it was so highly criticized. People were calling Chris Kyle a coward? Why? Everyone has their own opinion, but my point is that the movie shows the shifts in attitude that Kyle goes through. The different phases shown is why I thought it was such a great movie. Although a war veteran will probably say that nothing will ever be able to fully grasp the experiences they have been through, and I can understand that. I do not think anyone can understand war without actually experiencing it first hand.

Black Hawk Dawn & Article Comparison

The two articles assigned for us to read this past week were actually very interesting. It was easy to pin point similarities between both the articles and the novel Black Hawk Down. The first one I read, "American Soldiers Killed Freeing Prisoners of ISIS in Iraq", stood out to me the most. Simply from the title I related it back to Black Hawk Down because in both, obviously there were casualties, and there were prisoners involved. In Black Hawk Down, American Soldiers captured a few Somali prisoners, and Durant was captured by Somalis in contrast. What also stood out very prominently to me was how recent this articles was written. October 22, 2015. This was written literally the day before it was assigned to us, and I think that brings up the topic again of how we American's perceive death and casualties through war. Although we've talked about this quite a few times in class already, it's a pretty important argument. We don't take them lightly. We think that when there are casualties, there are errors or something within our military isn't at an appropriate standard. Of course people are entitled to that opinion, but soldiers are always going to be perceived as men and women who will die for our country...so when that time comes, why is there always such an uproar? In the first article, I also noticed that it mentioned that "Iraqi officials said the raid involved American helicopters"(Gordon). (Not sure if we need to cite in these blogs but just to be safe here you go). Since Black Hawk helicopters were a main topic in the book, it's easy to automatically think of it while reading the article. On a side note, not really related to Black Hawk Down, I noticed that it was stated that officials would not give details on the operation. Why? I'm not super familiar with protocol and what not, so I don't know if they need certain clearance to obtain this kind of information or not. I just found it curious. The second article was interesting also, mostly due to how complicated some of these means of communications were. Again, another argument we've seriously discussed in class was the means of communication in Black Hawk Down and how it wasn't necessarily beneficial...at all. In this article, I was most drawn towards the flag waving techniques. While reading how this was preformed I couldn't help but think of every single way this could go wrong. You could easily mess up a movement and in turn have the messages intercommunicated or simply lost in translation. Also, how long it would take to deliver a simple sentence...and also how dumb it seems that both side used the exact same system...meaning either side could decipher what the other was communicating. I think that it's interesting to read relatively recent articles and see how things in way have or have not changed. Like I said earlier, I really am not too familiar with how certain things in the military work, so I try not to comment on what I do not know, but from the looks of what I've learned about it so far is that we have a long way to go, We are constantly learning from our mistakes and that is for sure a good thing, but if we want to remain the world super power and have the most elite military, I think that we need to learn how to prioritize and realize that we need to step in when it is absolutely necessary and in the end will either benefit both us and the country we are helping, or just aid the country and ensure it does not negatively effect our safety back home.