In the words of Otto Von Bismarck, “people never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.” In keeping faith with this notion, numerous passages that have been read and discovered throughout the duration of this course thus far correlate with war and lies. Two passages that struck interest in myself stem from a military blog titled, “The Unlikely Short-Timer,” and from Stuart D. Lee’s play titled, “The Ghosts May Laugh.” Both of the passages hold true to the fact that war is not as honorable, glorious, and glamorous as society makes it out to be. The connection to be made between these two passages concerning the realities of war showcases itself in the fact that a lie encompasses the entirety of a war more than a truth does. In stating the connection between these two passages, the truthfulness in admitting the lies of a war gives these two readings an amount of credibility that seems to be unusually rare.

The first passage derives from Stuart D. Lee’s play, “The Ghosts May Laugh.” The passage is a line coming from the character and soldier, JONES. JONES has previously gone through a case of “shell-shock” and showcases the repercussions associated with that throughout this passage. Simply stated, the underlying theme of this passage concerns itself with the truthfulness in a lie. JONES discusses how one is taught that there is an afterlife so therefore soldiers use that lie to justify ordering people to kill, or killing each other, etc. There is a strong correlation between the theme of lying and the theme of denial. It seems to be that war in itself is an event in which all the lying converges into an outbreak of denial on the home front as well as abroad. In other words, the more society is in denial about the reality of war, the more the soldiers will be affected. To emphasize this notion, an excerpt from JONES’ passage reads: “…You see there’s nothing special about us. Nothing that makes us better than the animals around us…What do we do? I’ll tell you, we use that slight gain in understanding and awareness to think up new ways to kill each other, or to order other people to kill, because we’ve all bought the lie that there is something we can go to after all of this—because we’re special, we’re chosen…” (Lee, 83.) The gritty, raw, truth within this passage enlightens the listeners to the grim reality instead of the romanticized glory of war.

On another note, the passage from Stuart D. Lee’s play uses various literary language forms to accentuate the point being made. Two forms include the idea of concreteness and anaphora. Concreteness occurs when the author seeks to represent the war in concrete detail. Lee uses JONES’ character to showcase this concreteness in his dialogue about the lie. JONES states that “…Nothing makes us better than the animals around us. We’re just mishaps of biology, collections of cells that form into bones and skin some into a brain which makes us slightly more intelligent…” (Lee, 83.) Thus, JONES’ character uses the physical biological description of the soldiers as a way to make the war real and concrete in its characteristics. In addition, anaphora is used at the beginning of this passage quite distinctively. Anaphora categorizes itself as a type of parallelism that incorporates repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of consecutive phrases, etc. Keeping in line with our theme, JONES’ description of the “lie” exemplifies anaphora quite well. The repetition is apparent, for example, in the following: JONES states, “A lie, the lie! A lie we have been told ever since we were born. A lie we were told in school, in church, by our parents, by the newspapers. All day, every day. It’s the lie all three of you have been repeating tonight with your bloody ghost stories…” (Lee, 83.) JONES reiterates the concept of “the lie” over and over again as an attempt to emphasize the truthfulness in his point.

In comparison, the second passage comes from a military blog, titled “The Unlikely Short-Timer.” To be more specific, the post I would like to focus on is titled, “Call It a Night.” “Call It a Night” discusses how its author feels about coming back home from the war and whether or not he wants to return. One can compare this military blog to the discussed theme of lying and deception towards war. The author converses about how the war is perceived through the eyes of civilians compared to how the war realistically makes the soldiers feel. A powerful testimonial is made when the author states that “…Nah, don’t think I could do it again. Not after experiencing first-hand how restrained we are. Powerless. Armed to the teeth but tied up with red tape. Blindfolded, one arm tied behind the back…Blind and paranoid and expected to smile and wave and win over strangers that don’t give a fuck about you, doing the bidding of powerful men who also don’t give a fuck about you…” (Usual Suspect, 2009.) This excerpt shows how the soldiers are not as strong, powerful, and honorable as society makes them out to be. The author talks about how high governmental officials glorify war and service, while the soldiers know the truth and see the brutality and humiliation. The author seems to be rather aware of the sense of denial that, as previously discussed, is apparent within the minds of those not on the front lines. As one can see through the course of these two passages, if society continues to deny the fact that war is corrupted by lies, then nothing will ever change. Our country, and other countries for that matter, will continue to fight wars that might not even be necessary to fight because everyone “turns the other cheek” and we fight them anyway. For example, in relation to the war in Iraq, society was so caught up in patriotism and “getting the bad guys” that the negative side to war and its characteristics got overlooked.

As was the case with the first passage, this passage from the military blog exemplifies concreteness as well. In addition, and in contrast, the author uses forms of abstraction to illustrate his story and point of view. First off, the concreteness present in the military blog shows itself through the discussion of deployment versus going home. “…Like swallowing your pride, standing up and walking away from the table, ego bruised, cutting the losses and just walking. Just praying that the pit boss doesn’t walk up behind me and give me one of those taps on the shoulder to let me know that I owe them more…” (Usual Suspect, 2009.) The author shows concreteness by describing in depth the feelings associated with being asked to return to the front lines.

On the other hand, the literary language form of abstraction broadcasts a quite opposite view. Abstraction is said to incorporate the use of non-specific words and phrases. This literary usage can provide a way to raise the ordinary or disguise the ugly. “The Unlikely Short-Timer” military blog shows this in numerous excerpts. As the author states, “…I think about it plenty. I have a metric ton of respect for the people that choose to stay in. Not me though. I don’t want to roll the dice anymore. Russian roulette for combat pay, and nowadays the odds aren’t so bad, right? I don’t care if it’s for million dollar paychecks, because if it’s you that ends up on the wrong end of the revolver, no amount of money is going to help you…” (Usual Suspect, 2009.) Using phrases such as “Russian roulette,” “roll the dice” and “million dollar paychecks” employ abstractness in their characteristics, however, succeed greatly in expressing the actual story and emotion the author is attempting to get across.

As one can see through the course of this discussion, various themes and assumptions can be made about the nature and the reality of war. Specifically, the description of two passages, one from the course readings and one from an interesting military blog, showcased the overwhelming theme of lies, deception, and denial. The first passage taken out of Stuart D. Lee’s play titled, “The Ghosts May Laugh,” broadcasted the lie through the personal account of a soldier, JONES, who felt the affects most dramatically. The second passage was taken from the military blog titled, “The Unlikely Short-Timer,” and expressed the real, gritty, truth within the lies about war, soldiers, and the battlefront. A quote I concur to be a decent representation of this theme and of war in itself is from George Orwell. Orwell states, bluntly yet accurately, that “all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”