Once There Was A War Analysis

One of America’s greatest novelists, John Steinbeck embedded himself within the military as a special war correspondent and wrote New York Herald Tribune articles chronicling his experiences overseas in 1943. Articles by writers like Steinbeck provided the only record that was not tented with propaganda, nationalism, and glorification of the military. In 1958, Steinbeck’s articles were gathered together for the book Once There Was a War. The unedited life of military personnel during World War II as represented in Once There Was a War included uniformity, fear, and in the end, fragmented memories. The obvious example of uniformity within the military is their uniforms. From head to toe, they are meant to look and act the same. The helmets on their heads only fit one way; it sits even on the head covering the majority of the eyes, ears, and neck. (14) Eyes are commonly considered the window to the soul, but it is hard to continue the acts necessary in war if souls are seen everywhere you look. Instead, the personnel “have no identity, no personality. The men are units in an army. The numbers chalked on their helmets are almost like the license numbers on robots.” (13)
The idea that soldiers are god-like or fearless is ignoring the humanity and once again the souls of these people. “The soldiers were exactly as brave and as cowardly as anyone …show more content…
Reading them one after another as they are laid out in Once There Was A War shows the forced uniformity of the army; this is the only way to be efficient. Despite the military personnel functioning like a well-oiled machine, they had the fear of death and war in the back of their minds every hour if not filling all their thoughts. The brains of military personnel (and Steinbeck) cannot fully process the horrors of war and the brains hold on to some distinct features, but not what seems most memorable to the