there’s no discharge in the war

Military poetry has been wildly misinterpreted over the years. poems, books, movies, and songs made to share the horrors of war and show the human suffering from victims of war as well as soldiers made to warn us have been so extremely tainted and warped it is now being used as pro-military propaganda. 

Recently I had seen a post about the poem boots by rudyard kipling (published 1903) was a pro-military march used to show the strength of the US military. the post went on to say that another post using the 1915 recording of the poem as the audio that showed the clothing of rape victims and satistics of rape in the US was disrespecful because it was taking a poem about "hard working american men" and using it to attack men. not only was this man wrong about the meaning of the poem, but he refuses to view a post made to make awearness of rape victims as anything but an attack on men. The poem boots was written to be a representation of the thoughts of soldiers in the British infantry marching in south africa during the second boer war. The poem is repetitive not just to represent the rhythm of marching but to show the insanity that comes with dull repetitive tasks for hours on end several times a day. It was made to show the mental anguish of soldiers not just caused by the horrors and death surrounding them and the constant fear of death but the constant pressure to act accordingly and made to act as a machine marching as a group for miles upon miles and hours upon hours. The poem is not encouraging the marches or made to be sung while marching but to show the madness that comes with it. 

Hanoi Hannah's "gi!" broadcast has also been misinterpreted . trinh thi ngo began working for "Voice of Vietnam" radio at in 1955 at 24 where she began to go buy hanoi hannah or thu hu`o`ng where she began to write scripts to read on the radio to inform GI soldiers on what was happening as well as convincing them to abandon post and leave Vietnam. it was come to my attention that most people that are new to hearing these recordings as I've seen them be shared on places like tiktok and insta belive the women was some evil vietnam political poem that spewed lies to torture already suffering soldiers. However the news she shared with the soldiers during her broadcast was taken out of the US newspapers and she played audio recordings of Americans who were against the war to show the soldiers what was really happening outside of this war. While what she was doing was still propaganda, she wasn't lying. She broadcasted 3 times a day, each time with an updated list on newly killed or imprisoned soldiers, she played anti war songs, and delivered messages about the government abandoning them and the rich using them. some quotes from her broadcast were "G.I., your government has abandoned you. They have ordered you to die. Don't trust them, they lied to you, G.I.'s you know you cannot win this war ""isn't it clear that the war makers are gambling with your lives, while pocketing huge profits?" " American G.I.'s don't fight this unjust immoral and illegal war of johnsons. get out of vietnam now and alive". Up until her death she believed that America should not have been in Vietnam and that America had done something inhuman in the way they treated their soldiers, sending them to a war they knew they couldn't win. The woman was not an evil manipulator, she was a radio broadcaster who was showing American soldiers harsh realities, the government was not working for them, they were pawns to the government, and that American people back home did not want this war. (and before yall misinterpret every damn thing i say i dont agree with propaganda, im just saying that she didn't make shit up to torture soldiers, it was just reality) 

the problem presents to more modern media like stanly kubricks "full metal jacket" having a fan base that views it as a dude bro funny war film when in reality it was a film made to criticize what the government puts soldiers through in the form of boot camps and later during service with ridicule and stress. The film shows that the process of breaking soldiers down to be obedient does not help them in the long run and actually does nothing but gives veterans ptsd and soldiers mental disorders. whithen the film you see this most direcly when in the first 20 minutes a solider that had been heavily ridiculed by not just the sargent but the bunk members goes insane and commits suicide in the bathrooms on the last day of the boot camp. the rest of the film follows a solider that works as a on ground journalist who travels to diffrent camps documenting conditions and deaths, in his travels he meets sevreal men that behave like fucked up children. One man he met had shot civilian rice farmers from an airplane for fun and had kept a dead Vietnam man and dressed him in US soldier uniforms to mock him. and at the end of the film a song called the "mickey mouse" song is sung by soldiers as they walk along a battlefield showing that even after all they've faced they are still the people they were before, just more scared. 

In times like these these media are especially important, listen to the messages of those before us and learn from past mistakes. or soldiers did not die for people to later market their deaths to teens and veterans did not survive hell and the torment of being a political pawn for us to turn their stories into epic action stories to give to the youth at the recruitment table