As most people know, there is a wide range of viewpoints on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some people wholeheartedly support all of it: the war, the President, the troops and their mission. Others are staunchly opposed to every aspect of the war (a number which seems to be growing everyday based on public opinion polls); and of course there are many who fall somewhere in between these two extremes.
After reading many first-hand accounts in the book, Operation Homecoming, I have an overwhelming feeling of being unaffected and totally disconnected from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am aware of the fact that so many people are willingly giving up their lives to this war, yet my daily life is not affected by it at all. Nothing has changed in my day-to-day routine since the war began. I do not know anyone who is fighting in Iraq, nor do I feel any connection to what is happening there.
This excerpt taken from Operation Homecoming is from a woman writing a letter to her brother, a U.S. Army Captain fighting in the war. It provides a brief, but accurate summary of the American apathy towards the war:
“I don’t know how many others are touched personally, and this is what bothers me. We are at war. We are spending inordinate amounts of our resources, yet we are not asked to conserve, to cut back, here at home. The forty-five-million-dollar inaugural ball went on as scheduled. The Oscars, the Super Bowl; we are a country out of touch…Our national dialogue should be loud and inflamed, we should be working day and night to figure out a way to handle this mess, not tuning in to American Idol.” (Carroll, 200).
After reading many first-hand accounts in the book, Operation Homecoming, I have an overwhelming feeling of being unaffected and totally disconnected from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am aware of the fact that so many people are willingly giving up their lives to this war, yet my daily life is not affected by it at all. Nothing has changed in my day-to-day routine since the war began. I do not know anyone who is fighting in Iraq, nor do I feel any connection to what is happening there.
This excerpt taken from Operation Homecoming is from a woman writing a letter to her brother, a U.S. Army Captain fighting in the war. It provides a brief, but accurate summary of the American apathy towards the war:
“I don’t know how many others are touched personally, and this is what bothers me. We are at war. We are spending inordinate amounts of our resources, yet we are not asked to conserve, to cut back, here at home. The forty-five-million-dollar inaugural ball went on as scheduled. The Oscars, the Super Bowl; we are a country out of touch…Our national dialogue should be loud and inflamed, we should be working day and night to figure out a way to handle this mess, not tuning in to American Idol.” (Carroll, 200).
So it would seem that there are many Americans who share my view and feel disconnected to the war, and keep living their day-to-day life the same as they would if there was no war going on.
In contrast, the whole country changed during World War Two. Everyone across the country made sacrifices, and the entire way of life shifted for most people. Women took over in the workforce as men went to fight in foreign lands. Factories, which now employed women, changed their production to making items necessary for war. Food and gasoline were rationed; nothing was thrown away. Today, “…only a handful of Americans are directly affected by the war or asked to sacrifice for it. For many it feels removed…It’s easy to forget because there hasn’t been a draft…It’s not wartime in the way we are living…People aren’t collecting scrap metal or growing victory gardens” (Knickerbocker, 2007). In Vietnam the whole country was absorbed in the war. People watched their television set each night to find out what had happened in the day’s fighting. (E. Sheaffer, personal interview, February 10, 2008).
“The depth of the protests [during the Vietnam War], the unrest; it spoke volumes about people’s engagement with the war, with their country. This war hasn’t gripped us, hasn’t absorbed us like the other conflicts did” (Carroll, 199).
“The depth of the protests [during the Vietnam War], the unrest; it spoke volumes about people’s engagement with the war, with their country. This war hasn’t gripped us, hasn’t absorbed us like the other conflicts did” (Carroll, 199).
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