The Death Of A Ball Turret Gunner

War is a problem that seems inevitable. America was founded thanks to a war, yet many Americans such as Michael Herr and William James do not support it. They both wrote essays to show the negative effects of war and to shine a new light on the subject. The essay, “Illumination Rounds” by Michael Herr, was published in The New American Review #7 in 1969. Herr speaks of his experiences in Vietnam and shares the abundant coping methods the soldiers use to deal with PTSD. He asserts that war is not worth all of the negative effects.

Death is something that everyone has to look forward to at some point in life, but one is temporarily alive by this idea of the “American dream” they are handed throughout a lifetime. It is not until many are faced with adversity that life is truly noticed. For the gunner this moment comes when he is “six miles from earth” facing enemies that he wakes up for the first time. He is awake due to this being the first time in his life that he is truly separated from that dream. Jarrell uses the second half of line three to describe this idea of the detachment from the normality of everyday life. Jarrell is saying that everyday life is just a dream and one is a zombie, dazed going through the motions of typical life. What Jarrell is saying here is that Americans are born dead due to the life they are brought up in and since they are dead do not get to experience real life. The ball turret gunner only truly “lives” for a little bit due to the changing consequences of war around him. Last line of the poem describes his actual death and how

People who have never experienced the war portray it as “grotesque.” (O’Brien 77) They’ve never truly listened to the soldier's stories, Tim O’Brien is able to find beauty within the “awful majesty of combat.” (O’Brien 77) The metaphor comparing the “trace rounds” to “brilliant red ribbons” illustrate the war in a completely different light. (O’Brien 77) The respect for “the fluid symmetries of troops” shows the organization of the war and the training and preparing that the troops do to serve our country and protect Americans. (O’Brien 77) There is beauty within these individuals and their stories of why they decided to risk their lives to protect us. Tim O’Brien’s simile comparing a “bombing raid” or “artillery barrage” to “a killer forest fire” or “cancer under a microscope” explains the “aesthetic purity” within the war. (O’Brien 77) Tim O’Brien puts the war into an idea that his readers can understand, he proves it’s possible to find beauty even in a

The collection of poems “Theater”, “Water”, and “Safe House” by Solmaz Sharif shows the varied viewpoints of how war affects the speakers and how death is all too common in the midst of warfare. The author uses a spectrum of literary techniques to enhance the experience of the reader, so we can fully grasp the severity of each speaker’s plight. All of Sharif’s poems differ in form with the use of white space and indentations in “Theater”, colons in “Water”, and a style of abecedarian using the letter S in “Safe House”. While her diverse use of forms generate different emotions from the reader, they share the same notion of how violence is problematic. Each poem has a unique outlook to the sight of war: “Theater” being in the position of a victim and an assailant of war, “Water” explaining a war mission and fatalities in terse terms, and “Safe House” as an observer of an activist against war. Sharif’s strategy to exemplify the effects of how war affects the victim and the civilian is particularly critical because mass media tends to hide the collateral damage of war and only illustrates why we should attack the “enemy”. Another approach the author uses to critique the speakers central conflicts is by arranging words from the US Department of Defense 's Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, to concur with the message of the several ways war influences the lives of those who are unwillingly encompassed by it. Sharif uses poetry as an outlet to show the underlying tone

The poetic form and structure of Turner’s poem reinforce the concept of the horrific trauma these soldiers were experiencing. For example, Turner use of anaphora emphasize this message at the beginning of the poem, “Nothing but hurt left here. / Nothing But bullets and pain” and also at the beginning of the second stanza, “Believe it when you see it. / Believe it when a twelve-year-old / rolls a grenade into the room” (1-2: 7-9). These lines show the reader that all the soldiers have are themselves and what Turner is saying is the truth. In addition, Turner’s use of lineation further drives this message by ending several lines with words commonly used to describe an injured soldier such as, pain, slumping, wounded, and hurt (2,3,5,6). Together, the negative connotation of these words increases the reader’s understanding of the trauma

War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, written by the talented author Chris Hedges, gives us provoking thoughts that are somewhat painful to read but at the same time are quite personal confessions. Chris Hedges, a talented journalist to say the least, brings nearly 15 years of being a foreign correspondent to this book and subjectively concludes how all of his world experiences tie together. Throughout his book, he unifies themes present in all wars he experienced first hand. The most important themes I was able to draw from this book were, war skews reality, dominates culture, seduces society with its heroic attributes, distorts memory, and supports a cause, and allures us by a

The ball turret gunner of the B-17 and B-24 was an important job; however was a dangerous one. In Randall Jarrell’s “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” makes a comparison to a ball turret to a mother’s womb. The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner throughout the poem talks about the mother’s womb. From the birth of him, to when he’s in the ball turret, to when he is dead.

Many of the great poems we read today were written in times of great distress. One of these writers was Randall Jarrell. After being born on May 6, 1914, in Nashville Tennessee, Jarrell and his parents moved to Los Angeles where his dad worked as a photographer. When Mr. and Mrs. Jarrell divorced, Randall and his younger brother returned to Nashville to live with their mother. While in Nashville, Randall attended Hume-Frogg high school. Randall showed his love for the arts while in high school by participating in dramatics and journalism. Jarrell continued his career in the arts when he wrote and edited for Vanderbilt’s humor magazine, The Vanderbilt Masquerader. After

The plot of the poem is about war and the death of a Turret Gunner in the belly of a fighter plan. The poem describes the death of the gunner during the war, and he’s drafted to fight for the United States of America during the war. Jarrell describes the fighter plan when he says “ six miles from earth, loosed from it’s dream of life” (line 3), meaning he is in the air fighting and far away from the life he once lived. Jarrell describes the belly of the plane as a cold and wet by stating, “And I haunched in its belly till my fur wet froze” (line 2). Being at war is a dark gloomy time of a soldiers life, and is more like a nightmare than reality described when Jarrell says, “I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters” ( line 4). In

War, “the blood-swollen god” (Crane 27), is one of the most controversial yet beneficial acts to humanity. Many exalt this deity by liturgical forms of media such as video games or entertainment on the television. Nevertheless, their praise cannot eradicate the casualties of war. To further explain, the Iraq War has fluctuated the American economy by costing one trillion dollars and six hundred and fifty thousand people ( Kelley & Ingersoll par 1, Iraq par 3). The depression of lives and money has credited war with several demerits because many citizens would rather live passively in a nation that will be “Okay For Now” (Schmidt 1). Numerous works of literature have narrated differing opinions of war; however, one novel in particular,

Throughout the history of the world, there have been few wars that match the magnitude of the “Great War.” Over the course of four years, millions died in battle and many new technologies and weapons were used to consume the lives of enemies. “The Two Soldiers’ Views” allows people to see the horrors of this extensive war through two soldiers’ eyes. This historical document consists of a letter and a poem written by two different soldiers.

While both Alfred Lord Tennyson and Wilfred Owen describe war in great detail in their works “Charge of the Light Brigade” and “Dulce Et Decorum Est,” respectively, Tennyson describes the courage and honor of warfare, whereas Owen goes into more detail about the horrors and atrocities that go hand-in-hand with war. Tennyson describes a battle in which 600 bold and courageous men storm a valley, which he refers to as the “Valley of Death” (line 7), to meet their almost inevitable death. Owen in his “Dulce et Decorum Est,” describes a scene from World War I in which soldiers are bombarded with gas shells. In this essay I will argue that despite their differing subjects and themes, both Tennyson and Owen’s work prove that the honor and courage of the soldiers comes directly from the hardships they must endure.

With every great video game there is always a final battle as the same goes with every great movie there is always a great ending, the same goes for life as long as we live our lives although not always long but anyways amazing life sadly must always coming to an end even the beautiful flowers in your garden or a new born puppy that is just born, that’s why people try to tell you to live your life to the fullest extent. In the poems “Death be not proud”, “Because I could not Stop for Death “and “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” all highlight different deaths and each having there our unique symbol and importance.

The long standing expression that “the pen is mightier than the sword” has been repeated often throughout the ages, but it can actually be taken seriously in light of war poetry. Although the soldiers in World War I did not literally fight with swords, their experiences in combat were beyond appalling, and some might say, beyond describable by words. Poetry, however, is a very powerful form of expression, and when written by someone who has experienced the horrors of war, it can deeply convey the grim reality of war. Utilising personal experiences and pre-war ideology, World War I poets Wilfred Owens and Rupert Brookes’ were able to recreate the glory and horror of the Great War through their works ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and ‘The Soldier’.

“It's not to hard to sacrifice for someone you love, but it's hard to find someone who’s worth your sacrifice.” When you have a reason for what you do then, it makes it easier to work harder. One example is when you have a job, you work harder so you can get paid money. This can also apply to soldiers in war, they work hard for citizens to live freely. When you are trying to do something that is worth sacrificing you start with what you love and teach or spread it to those around you. A man by the name Randall Jarrell, he was a writer that loved reading and writing and teaching. He had a love for writing, this helped him describe situations in history. His poetry was very deep Horne wrote that, “moving "back and forth between life and the 'life' that is created by writing” Randall tells of life in his stories, in one called The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner. In this poem he tells about the lifestyle that Turret Gunners have in WWII. In The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner, there are 3 messages described.