Combat_High

Response to “Combat High” In the short story “Combat High”, Sebastian Junger depicts war as rewarding and nothing short of exciting but yet very costly at the same time. One way in which Junger describes war as rewarding is when he is talking about the relationships and bonds that the men form while gone at war. He drives home the point that these men don’t have their wives and children there with them, just the other men alongside them that are risking their lives day in and day out. Because of this separation from their families, they create bonds amongst one another with the same amount of passion as they would their loved ones. In Junger’s words, “Men form friendships that are not at all sexual but contain much of the devotion and intensity of a romance.” Another way in which Sebastian Junger depicts war as rewarding is when he writes about the sense of purpose that combat gives the men. He tells us that combat is “the only game in town” meaning it’s all the men know; it’s their life. When something becomes your life, you’re going to take it pretty seriously. And that’s exactly what these men did with combat. Not only is war rewarding, but according to Junger war is “insanely exciting” as well. It may not seem exciting to civilians, but to the men who partake in it and hear the machinery and its sounds first hand, it’s the most exciting thing they will ever engage in. Junger talks about the excitement a young nineteen year old gets while operating a .50 cal during a firefight. To sum up how exciting war really is, Junger states “In some ways 20 minutes of combat is more life than you could scrape together in a lifetime of doing something else.” Despite war being both rewarding and exciting, it also comes with its consequences as well. Junger talks about the many psychological effects it has on the men. When it comes to returning to their normal lives back home, he tells us that they all “worry that they may have been ruined for anything else.” One situation in particular sums up the psychological affects that war has on the men. Junger describes the scene as follows: some American soldiers got news of an Afghan man crawling around on a mountain without a leg, and when they got the call in that the Afghan man had been killed they all cheered. When war is causing someone to cheer over something that most people mourn, something is seriously wrong. After reading “Combat Hill” I was left with mixed emotions. There were parts of the story that I agreed with and other parts that I didn’t agree with. A couple things that I did agree with and like was that war gives the young men a sense of purpose and the explanation Junger gives in the story of why the men were cheering over the death of the one legged Afghan man. First off, I agree that war does indeed give the men who participate in it a sense of purpose. Being the son of a father who spent twenty-two years in the Air Force and having both of my brothers in the Armed Forces I know this first hand. They take great pride in knowing that they have the privilege of protecting this nation’s freedom. With that responsibility on their shoulders they understand that people are relying on them and that drives them even further to succeed. So I feel that yes, war does instill a sense of purpose in those who take part in war. The other part that I liked about this short story was explanation we’re given as to why the men were cheering over the Afghan man’s death. When I first read it I felt a little bad that they were cheering, but after I kept reading I then understood why they were doing so. In the story, Steiner is the one doing the explaining and he puts it this way; that’s just one less person that is trying to shoot at and kill the American soldiers. Cheering may still be a bit extreme but we need to put ourselves in their shoes and understand that every day is a struggle for them, a struggle to survive and live. So when one of the enemy dies, that’s an even greater chance they have of living to see another day. The thing that I did not agree with was the fact that Junger basically said that the young men didn’t have true role models to look up to because the other men were just a few years older than them. If you ask me any man that is brave enough to enlist in the Armed Forces is a great role model to me, regardless of age.