United States military memorials and cemeteries

How do poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon present their ideas of war in their poems, Exposure and Does It Matter? Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon are two famous war time poets, who conveyed their first-hand experiences of war through the form of poems to enlighten people towards the reality of war, as shown in “Exposure” and “Does It Matter?”. Exposure is an emotionally powerful poem that expresses the reality of the brutal weather conditions that were endured by the soldiers in the front line, and the mental and physical toll it took on their bodies; it shows this through its uses of vivid imagery, repetition and rhetorical questions that effectively recreate the scene in the eye of the reader. On the other hand, Does It Matter? is an ironical poem that mocks the unrealistic expectation society has towards soldiers and how unaware they are of the brutality of the situation as they continue to glorify its true effects. In “Exposure” Owen uses a range of powerful and empathetic language to make an impact on the reader right from the start of the poem in hope that they will fully understand the horrors of the conditions of war. Throughout the poem he speaks in 1st person, using the word “our” to make it seem as if he is speaking as a unified voice for the pain of all the soldiers, which makes it seem like less of an opinion and more of a mutually agreed statement. This is shown as he begins the poem with the opening phrase “our brains ache”, which implies the mental…

About one hundred and fifty-five years ago, Abraham Lincoln gave “The Gettysburg Address” on a blood soaked battlefield in Pennsylvania (Brown). “The Gettysburg Address” was first verbalized months after the battle of Gettysburg at a service to dedicate the opening of the national cemetery (The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica). Lincoln’s Address was spoken to the citizens and soldiers of the union in the wake of the second invasion of the North by Robert E. Lee (The Battle of Gettysburg Facts…

(Jarecki 2005) is a documentary that is based on the American military force and especially its operations since World War II. The documentary focuses on the reasons behind the foreign military policy of the United States of America. It uses the invasion of Iraq in 2003 as an example to explain this policy. It covers multiple concepts, the most important one being the military industrial complex. Is the American foreign military policy in its own interest? What are their motives? The film…

Vernice Armour says, "Bottom line is if you can do the job, you should be out there doing it...man or a woman" (picture caption). Women were band from the military in 1994 but in 2013, Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempseysign a memorandum ending the 1994 ban on women serving in combat roles in the military (The Guardian). Women should be on the front lines with the men serving are country. “Women have plenty of opportunities in the military over 14,000…

We always appreciate those who served in the United States military because they fought for our freedom, and who is not appreciative of that? People always hear great stories about military veterans who won medals or executed extraordinary task. Not a lot of people hear stories or firsthand accounts from the regular enlisted or ex-soldiers. Kenneth Brazile Sr. was one of those great but average people to serve in this great nation’s military. He was in the Army way back in time around 1989. He…

Monday: Being a part of a military family means being a part of a community and network of people across the United States and world. Being a member of this group of people creates a special bond that outsiders may not fully understand. It can be difficult for civilians to understand that military members of service would choose to fight in a war that no one truly knows anything about. With modern technology, we can see that violence is a large part of war, but the battles our members of service…

As the United States military, and the American public at large, struggle with the legacy and lessons of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) in Iraq, and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan, Lieutenant General (Retired) Daniel Bolger’s book, Why We Lost, adds an important element to the debate. An element that questions the advice to political leadership, the strategy, and the leadership of the country’s senior military officers. Bolger’s service as a…

Military’s approach to pursuing and supporting stability in foreign regions, the U.S. Military must rethink its doctrine and organization around the “Stability Operation” title. The contemporary embrace of the term “Stability Operation” sets a misguided direction upon which organization and planning become confused. Stability is a desirable condition or objective. Stability is not an operation, however. The term “Stability Operation” must be removed from the U.S. Military lexicon and…

Another stereotype and misconception that Veterans are given is that they are they are only good for killing others as well as to being completely uneducated and do not have any other skill other than the one they they get from training and working for the military. The skills that they do receive from the military are completely useless when adapting to civilian life, and veterans are viewed by some as useless, unskilled, and unemployed. That they are a huge waste of taxpayer money if they were…

World War I saw the United States’ first attempt at running a massive national army of citizen soldiers. Through the conflict, the military authority structure for running this army was still solidifying, and the enlisted men, a.k.a. the “doughboys,” had a substantial amount of power in dictating the nature of the relationship between themselves and the structure that commanded them. The military higher-ups found themselves on many occasions having to coerce the soldiers to comply with orders.…