A Long Way Home
As we've been reading and discussing novels and excerpts of stories from the war, my eyes have been opened to the atrocity of war. Although I knew before that war is a horrendous thing that results in tragedy, loss, and heartbreak, I never really tried to put myself in the soldiers' shoes. The novel Postcards from the Trenches by Allyson Booth shows not only how soldiers felt during the war, but how they had trouble readjusting to their homes after going through the brutality of war. In the excerpt we read, one specific quote really stood out to me: "...soldiers would feel alienated enough by the civilian population to alter their conceptions of home accordingly" (Booth 32). Despite spending the whole war wishing to be back home, the soldiers feel misplaced when they finally return. At home, it felt like people were still speaking a foreign language-the civilians' incomprehension of war made the soldiers feel like they came back to an unfamiliar land. They now felt like the battlefield was their home. The shared experiences of wondering when the dreaded moment may or may not come brought them close to the other soldiers and distanced them from their families. The transition from war life to home life, therefore, is very challenging for the majority of soldiers. I did some research about this and found an article giving an inside look into the transition from war life to home life. In the article, a veteran named Vincent Vargas described how difficult his transition was. After the war, Vargas struggled with some drinking problems. He discussed the fact that the hardest thing for him was proving himself as a father. In the end, he realized that drinking wouldn't solve anything. Over time, he bettered himself and has now moved on to helping other war veterans have a slightly smoother transition back home. Reading this article and discussing other novels in class has really helped me see how overwhelming post-war life really is.
(Attached below is the article about Vincent Vargas.)
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ReplyDeleteI felt the same way about never trying to put myself in the shoes of soldiers before reading the passage. I also found it surprising that soldiers felt like outsiders after being returned home, as I haven't really thought of it that way. I liked how the article you linked was interesting and it related well with the topic that you spoke of. The part explaining the 5 stages of veteran transition gave some extra insight building off of the quote used from Postcards from the Trenches, and I thought those details were intriguing too.
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