A Homecoming of War
Children often have no fear of the unknown, they are fearless, and can relate through their innocence and purity to overcome a situation. What is it about war that allows us to forget the boldness and courageous characteristics that we were once capable of as children?
Harold Krebs is a soldier still fighting in a war, but it is not being fought in a far- away place, it’s at home. Hemingway coveys the struggles of a soldier’s life returning to a normal life after fighting in a war in “Sodier’s Home”. In many ways Krebs could not adapt to his hometown and the people as well as the soldiers that arrived a year before him. This is something that many soldiers struggle with, conforming to what once was, to a society that …show more content…
Only after seeing his mother and how upset she is when Krebs tells her that he doesn’t love anyone, does we see some love that he is still capable of giving and showing. But like with many others who return home from war, he must learn to live again in a society that has embraced war and looked forward to a safe return of loved family members. The ecstatic mother, the proud father the loving siblings who all have nothing but stories themselves to fill soldiers in on regarding the life that they have missed while out. Funny how those of us who do not go off to war only want to make things “normal” again for these brave soldiers, make them comfortable, show them as much love as possible when many times, the soldiers just want to be alone. I don’t think we understand they have not processed the war, they fought in it and that is the extent of the exposure at the time it happens. But arriving home, they fight another war, a war they don’t expect or even realize they must fight. Fear, doubt, lack of connection with people, how lonely that can be and how heartbreaking for the soldier, and those who long anticipate the safe return of these soldiers. Maybe we too who didn’t go off and fight in the war, actually fight one that we ourselves don’t realize we are fighting, the homecoming war. We struggle to bring their lives back to normal, but it is a war they must fight to overcome, not on their own, but on their own time and their own terms. That, is the hardest war to
Children often have no fear of the unknown, they are fearless, and can relate through their innocence and purity to overcome a situation. What is it about war that allows us to forget the boldness and courageous characteristics that we were once capable of as children?
Harold Krebs is a soldier still fighting in a war, but it is not being fought in a far- away place, it’s at home. Hemingway coveys the struggles of a soldier’s life returning to a normal life after fighting in a war in “Sodier’s Home”. In many ways Krebs could not adapt to his hometown and the people as well as the soldiers that arrived a year before him. This is something that many soldiers struggle with, conforming to what once was, to a society that …show more content…
Only after seeing his mother and how upset she is when Krebs tells her that he doesn’t love anyone, does we see some love that he is still capable of giving and showing. But like with many others who return home from war, he must learn to live again in a society that has embraced war and looked forward to a safe return of loved family members. The ecstatic mother, the proud father the loving siblings who all have nothing but stories themselves to fill soldiers in on regarding the life that they have missed while out. Funny how those of us who do not go off to war only want to make things “normal” again for these brave soldiers, make them comfortable, show them as much love as possible when many times, the soldiers just want to be alone. I don’t think we understand they have not processed the war, they fought in it and that is the extent of the exposure at the time it happens. But arriving home, they fight another war, a war they don’t expect or even realize they must fight. Fear, doubt, lack of connection with people, how lonely that can be and how heartbreaking for the soldier, and those who long anticipate the safe return of these soldiers. Maybe we too who didn’t go off and fight in the war, actually fight one that we ourselves don’t realize we are fighting, the homecoming war. We struggle to bring their lives back to normal, but it is a war they must fight to overcome, not on their own, but on their own time and their own terms. That, is the hardest war to