A Rumor of War by Sydney Scheff

What psychological price do soldiers pay for killing?

sydney_scheff — 2015-10-15 00:52:23 UTC

Simply stated, fighting in a war changes people. The minds of some servicemen begin to deteriorate quicker than others. In A Rumor of War, Philip Caputo demonstrates what it is like to witness the loss of your own humanity from the outside, in. The duty of listing casualties, which once deeply disturbed him, becomes routine. The names he writes lose the meaning of the wasted lives of human beings, and soon mean “no more to (him) than the names in a phonebook.” (13, 218) Life of war becomes all that he knows, all that to which he is accustomed. Wracking his memory, he realizes that he has “a hard time remembering anything that happened before Vietnam.” (13,221) Caputo hates the war as much as any soldier beside him, though he does not “hate the enemy for their politics,” but for killing his friends. (14, 233) Rage grows inside of him as he recalls his “first violence fantasy” and realizes that he is “breaking down.” (15, 255) Although Caputo suffers the cruel psychological damage of war, he is able to survive with his head still screwed on the right way; many men are not so lucky.

Bibliography

volkan061898 — 2015-10-15 01:23:49 UTC

Caputo, Philip. A Rumor of War. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977. Print.

Mano, D. Keith. "Best of Season." Explora. Ebsco, n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2015.

<http://web.b.ebscohost.com/src_ic/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=7&sid=efbc757f-e005-45e8-ac29-b682d49dd0da%40sessionmgr114&hid=105>.

"Metallica - Disposable Heroes (Studio Version)." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRqCOIsTx8M>.

Literary Criticism and Reviws

volkan061898 — 2015-10-15 02:15:13 UTC

After searching for hours, there was only one review that concerns the book directly. Published on September 72, 1977 Best of Season held A Rumor of War in such high regards, claiming it to be one of the few pieces of literature to admit the exhilaration of war.

"No man can write about war unless he is first willing to acknowledge that special exhilaration: the exhilaration of a good kill."

Speaking from a literal term, one could write about war without having any prior knowledge about it, it just wouldn't turn out so well. But speaking in the sense that Keith puts it, no novel can meet the expectations of a great book unless it splurges into the darker side of human nature.

"Disposable Heroes"

2015-10-15 02:57:54 UTC

I chose this song because it reminds me of chapter 9 when Caputo hears what happened to Sullivan. Sullivan was twenty one and he found out that he was having a baby boy. At this point Caputo had his new job where he would deal with dead bodies and identify them. Before when he was on the battlefield he didn't see many dead bodies but when he got moved up that was all he had to deal with.

Bodies fill the fields I see, hungry heroes end
No one to play soldier now, no one to pretend
Running blind through killing fields, bred to kill them all
Victim of what said should be
A servant 'til I fall

Soldier boy, made of clay
Now an empty shell
Twenty-one, only son
But he served us well
Bred to kill, not to care
Do just as we say
Finished here
Greetings, Death
He’s yours to take away

Back to the front
You will do what I say, when I say
Back to the front
You will die when I say, you must die
Back to the front
You coward
You servant
You blind man

Barking of machinegun fire does nothing to me now
Sounding of the clock that ticks, get used to it somehow
More a man, more stripes you bare, glory-seeker trends
Bodies fill the fields I see
The slaughter never ends

Soldier boy, made of clay
Now an empty shell
Twenty-one, only son
But he served us well
Bred to kill, not to care
Do just as we say
Finished here
Greetings, Death
He’s yours to take away

Back to the front
You will do what I say, when I say
Back to the front
You will die when I say, you must die
Back to the front
You coward
You servant
You blind man

Why, am I dying?
Kill, have no fear
Lie, live off lying
Hell, hell is here

I was born for dying

Life planned out before my birth, nothing could I say
Had no chance to see myself, molded day by day
Looking back I realize, nothing have I done
Left to die with only friend
Alone I clench my gun

Soldier boy, made of clay
Now an empty shell
Twenty-one, only son
But he served us well
Bred to kill, not to care
Do just as we say
Finished here
Greetings, Death
He’s yours to take away

Back to the front
You will do what I say, when I say
Back to the front
You will die when I say, you must die
Back to the front
You coward
You servant
You blind man

Back to the front

War or Peace

2015-10-15 03:18:27 UTC

Caputo's outlook on war was that war is awful. In the book he relates war to Hell. During this time there were two out looks on war, people who wanted to fight Communism and people who didn't want war because our soldiers weren't ready. In Caputo's biography he was a Sargent and he wouldn't hang out with the other soldiers often because all they wanted to do is get drunk and have sex with hookers. He had to be a role model to them.