Comparison "Soldier's Home" and "Speaking of Courage"

War has always existed. Although the purpose of war varies, the outcome is the same; many lives are changed and ruined. War is often used to gain power, resources, and land, but it disregards the lives of those fighting the fight. Martin Luther King stated, “The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.” In three selections, “Medevac Missions,” “A Journey Taken with my Son,” and “At Lowe’s Home Improvement Center,” readers come to understand the truths of wars’ impact on the lives of those surrounding the soldier. Their friends change, their physical and psychological states change, but the hardest truth is adjusting to life back at home. Soldiers experience many life changes during active

Overseas females were either not present or presented as prostitutes. This corruption of women in Krebs mind remains, but he still thinks about them frequently. He states, “That was all a lie. It was a lie both ways.”, this demonstrates how, like many other facets of home life, was disenchanted by his service in war. Ernest uses repetition to demonstrate the revision of thought. For Norman, he only wishes he could’ve had what he almost had before he went away. His old sweetheart, Sally did not wait for him and, “...had her house and her new husband, and there was really nothing he could say to her.” O’Brien writes this as a list to convey that Norman feels overwhelmed by how much change has occurred during his absence. Once again, these soldiers feel isolated by their experience, Norman by the time spent away, and Krebs by the things he saw while he was

Ernest Hemingway “Soldier’s Home" is an outstanding short story that shows the tragic impact of war on the life of a young soldier who returns home. The story paints a vibrant picture of a soldier’s life after coming back from a shocking experience. Hemingway shows impacts of war on a soldier with the main character being Harold Krebs, who faces hostility in his hometown after his return from fighting in the war. The main character in the story is Kreb with the author making usage of repetition, characterization, and symbolism to bring out the message in the story.

A moment from this novel that lingered in my mind is when Kropp said this, '"I've made up my mind," he says after a while, "if they take off my leg, I'll put an end to it. I won't go through life as a cripple."' This lingered in my mind a lot. Kropp was no older then the age of twenty when this happened. It is sad that a young man like Kropp would even ever have to have thoughts of suicide because their leg was blown off. The war inflicted a lot of damage on the young soldiers lives and seemed to not benefit anyones life. Another thing that lingered in my head is this, "will make a grand feed. About twenty yards from our dug-out there is a small house that was used as an officers' billet. In the kitchen is an immense fireplace with two ranges,

Krebs soon comes to isolate himself and oppose discussing his war experience and the influence it had on him. For Krebs, living in a town that has moved past the war, was his reason to reminisce on his war experiences and the women who would walk the streets in Germany and France. After spending two years in World War I, adapting to the real world was asking Krebs to let go of everything that has shaped him since he has been gone. “He sat there on the porch reading a book on the war. It was a history and he was reading about all the engagements he had been in. It was the most interesting reading he had ever done.” Even after arriving home, attempting to adapt to the fact that the war was over, he studied war events he was part of; routes and war sites he had taken and fought at.

A “Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemmingway is an intriguing story about a man by the name of Krebs who enlists in the Marine Corps during his attendance at a Methodist college in Kansas. After serving for two years at the Rhine, he returned with the second division in 1919 but Krebs wasn’t in the same state of mind as before he left. The reason why Krebs was so distraught when he returned home was not because of the fact that no one wanted to listen to his war stories but because him and other soldiers were without any real benefits such as medical, education, extra remuneration, or anything to help him get back into the real world. This reason stated is the reason that Krebs and soldiers alike came home from war with nothing to show for

As a young man coming back from the war, Krebs expected things to be the same when he got home and they were, except one. Sure the town looked older and all the girls had matured into beautiful women, Krebs had never expected that he would be the one to change. The horrific experiences of the first World War had alienated and removed those he had cared about, including his family, who stood naïve to the realities and consequences only those who live it first hand would comprehend.

Numerous people all over the states join a military branch. Some are forced with war and others are not. Soldiers that have war experience might experience Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) when returning home. In the story of “Soldier Home”, Harold Krebs seems to have quite a few symptoms of this disorder. Prior to his war services, Krebs experiences conformity, connections, and his faith; however, after the war he has a difficult time adjusting back to civilian life.

In Soldier's Home, Ernest Hemingway paints a vivid picture of Harold Krebs return home from World War I and the issues he confronts while trying to shift his way back towards the ordinary life he once lived. After his battling over seas took place, it took Krebs over a year to finally leave Europe and make his way back home to his family in Oklahoma. After finally finding the drive to come home, Krebs found that it was difficult to express his feelings towards all he had seen during his tour of duty, which must be attributed to the fact that he was in the heart of some of the bloodiest and most crucial battles mankind has ever seen. Therefore, Krebs difficulty in acknowledging his past is because he was indeed a “good soldier” (133), whose

While the disconnection allows the soldier to adapt to the brutal war environment, it inhibits them from re-entering society. When he takes his leave, he is unable to feel comfortable at home. Even if Paul had survived the war physically, he most likely would not have integrated back into society suitably. The emotional disconnection inhibits soldiers from mourning their fallen friends and comrades. However, Paul was somewhat less than able to completely detach himself from his feelings, and there are several moments in the when he feels himself pulled down by emotion. These rush of feelings indicate the magnitude to which war has automated Paul to cut himself off from feeling, as when he says, with unbridled understatement, “Parting from my friend Albert Kropp was very hard. But a man gets used to that sort of thing in the army (p. 269) .”

Several different readers pointed out that Krebs is having difficulty because he no longer shares a common interest with the people in his hometown. Response 12 in "Reader Responses to Soldier's Home" suggest that Krebs is struggling "to fit in after coming back from war" and response 14 in "Reader Responses to Soldier's Home" points out that Krebs "seems to feel an outcast". What I see is Krebs has just spent two years of his life in battle, something he never imagined he would be involved in, something that most people could never imagine. Upon his arrival to his hometown,

Hemingway begins by saying Krebs went to a Methodist college fraternity where they wore, “exactly the same height and style collar,” (272) indicating that they were neatly dressed and proper. This is an indication that Krebs came from an environment that required uniformity. In the next paragraph, Hemingway also describes how Krebs is seen in a picture near the Rhine river soon after his enrollment where, “Krebs and the corporal look too big for their uniforms,” and, “The Rhine does not show in the picture,” (272) which leads the reader to believe that there is no solid proof that Krebs was ever in Germany during the war.

Harold Krebs is a man who has gone through a life-changing event and has experienced many consequences made by his own choices and decisions. He then has to come to the understanding that he has to try and rebuild his life as he knew it. Things weren’t working out at his family’s house so he decided to move to Kansas City where he would get a job. This war was a hundred years ago and Krebs came back and had no clue what to do with his life when he got back. The

Klay signals to the readers that Redeployment is much more than just a normal war story book about triumph and defeats, heroism and terrorism, but is actually about the impact that war has on the soldiers fighting abroad. The book consists of dark humor, irony, sarcasm, and military jargon and captures the reader’s attention emotionally. Klay has organized his stories in such a manner that they function in moving the story as a whole. He mentioned in his interview “It was important to me that the book had a structure. I wanted the stories to function together and be read in order.” Returning after deployment is one of the toughest experiences that a soldier faces, Klay captures this fact in his opening story, “Redeployment”, in which the narrator returns from Iraq and struggles combating against his war experiences back home. There is a sense of alienation that many soldiers feel. According to Oxford dictionary “alienation is the state or experience of being isolated from a group or an activity to which one should belong or in which one should be involved.” Military protocols and services are completely different from the civilian ones, it creates a communication gap between those who have and haven’t served in military making veterans feel like aliens back at home. For example, the narrator in “Redeployment” says, “You try to think about home, then you’re in the torture house” (Klay 9). Packer also supports this viewpoint in his article “Home fires” by writing, “No one

The setting of this story took place in Oklahoma back in the early 1900s. He lives in a hose with his parents and a younger sister. During that time period, most of the boys were deployed to serve in the military which the majority of them were able to come back home and have a normal life again. They were able to get a job and get married. Krebs’ return home was not as successful as most of them were. Before he left his hometown, he was probably really close with all of the neighbors and friends and was also really involved with the community since it was a small town. After coming home, he realized that nothing has changed since he left, but he was the one who has changed. His perspective toward life was not the same as it was before he left. His daily routine is to wake up during the late afternoon to read, eat, play pool, play the clarinet, walk around town, and go back to sleep. (Hemingway, p.167) This happened repeatedly every single