You and the Military

by Alan Shapiro

Additional Classroom Activities

Citizenship

If military recruiters visit your school, consider involving students in action projects. For example:

• Have students ask recruiters for an interview. What do they plan to do in the school? How? Do they intend to focus on particular students groups? If so, which ones and why? What do they tell these students? Do they inform students about the possibility of their being maimed or killed? What do recruiters say on this subject? How successful have they been in their recruiting efforts in other schools? What do they think about their work? If possible, videotape one or more interviews as well as recruitment activities.
• Have parents been informed that they can choose to deny recruiters information about their children? If so, how? If not, why not?
• Propose a PTA meeting to discuss the pros and cons military recruitment of high school students. Suggest a school-wide meeting on the subject for the community as well as for students, teachers, administrators, and parents. Invite speakers who will present multiple points of view. Show any videotapes to promote discussion.
• Have students prepare a report on all aspects of any project work and distribute it to students, parents, and others in the community.

Writing

Make the following essay assignment:
Why I will (or won't) consider joining the military.

Guest speaker

Invite a speaker from one of the military services and from an organization that offers suggestions for alternatives to the military (for example, the American Friends Service Committee, the War Resisters League--warresisters.org, Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors--objector.org) to address the class and to answer its questions.

Inquiry

Divide the class into two groups, both of which are to study the websites named above. Ask Group 1 students to find and write down every reason they can find or think of to support volunteering for military service. Ask Group 2 students to find and write down every reason they can find or think of to oppose volunteering for military service. Speaking with family and friends might also be useful. Schedule class reports and discussions to consider the pros and cons.

Literature

Students considering the military might profit from reading some of the powerful literature that has been written about war. Among the celebrated novels are Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage (Civil War); Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front (World War I) and Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead (World War II). Non-fiction includes John Keegan's The Face of Battle; Ernie Pyle's Ernie's War (World War II) and Chris Hedges' War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (recent wars in the Balkans, Central America and the Middle East).

Over the centuries, poets have expressed a range of attitudes toward war and the military. The following three poems are a sample:

How Can Man Die Better (excerpts)

Young men, stand firm and fight, stand one by other;
base retreat and rout let none begin.
Be high of heart, be strong in pride of combat;
grapple, self-forgetting, man to man....

Grown men regard the young, women desire them--
fair in life, in noble death still fair.
Be steadfast then, be strong and firmly rooted,
grip the ground astride, press teeth to lip.

--Tyrtaeus (ancient Greek, translated by T.F. Higham)

Questions:

1. What characteristics should young men in battle have?
2. What are their rewards?
3. This poem was written more than 2,000 years ago. How applicable is it today?

The Man He Killed

"Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have set us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!

"But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.

"I shot him dead because-
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although

"He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,
Off-hand like--just as I;
Was out of work, had sold his traps-
No other reason why.

"Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown."

--Thomas Hardy

Some definitions:

• A "nipperkin" is a drink container.
• "Traps" are items of clothing or belongings.
• "Half a crown" is a British coin.

Questions:

1. Who is the speaker in the poem?
2. Why did he kill the other man?
3. Why does the speaker repeat his reason for what he did?
4. Why does he seem puzzled?
5. If you had a chance, what would you say to the speaker about war?

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shot. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

GAS! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
-- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

--Wilfred Owen

Notes:

• "Five-Nines" are artillery shells that drop poison gas.
• The Latin words of the title and the final lines may be translated:
  "Sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country."

Questions:

1. Who is the speaker in the poem?
2. What is the condition of the men as described in stanza 1?
3. What happens to the man in stanza 2?
4. What effects on the reader do you suppose the poet had for his description of the man in stanzas 2-4?
5. Why do you suppose the speaker doesn't tell the reader where he is or why?
6. How would you describe the speaker's attitude toward what has happened?
7. Why does the speaker call the Latin expression a "Lie"?

Wilfred Owen was killed in World War I.

This essay was written for TeachableMoment.Org, a project of Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility. We welcome your comments. Please email them to: lmcclure@morningsidecenter.org..

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