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Philip Caputo's A Rumor of War

Philip CaputoÆs reasons for writing A Rumor of War

To illustrate how war is both repulsive and compelling

To explain the similarity of impulse that lies behind going to war and writing about it.

To explain the ways in which war is inevitable regardless of historical circumstance.

To explain why the specifics of the war were inevitable given the emotional, cultural and political aftermath of WWII.

To explain to those who have not been soldiers how powerless armed soldiers can feel.

To celebrate the stories of working-class American men. War transforms everyone who lives through it û the soldiers and those whose land is taken over by the carnage. Those who wait for telegrams at home. The children who grow up without parents. The parents who grow old without children. The country that wins and the one that loses.

And yet, obviously not everyone is changed enough by war, because if they were, then wars would no longer be fought. We would have come to an end of that part of human history in which the most important thing about a culture is how many sophisticated weapons it can build and how many young bodies it can afford to sacrifice in the name of one (often legitimately noble) cause or another.

Philip CaputoÆs novel about his own experiences in Vietnam -- A Rumor of War û is one of the finest books written about the military conflicts in this century, for he combines the ability to glorify personal bravery while disparaging the real results and effects of war. He can make us see the reality of a soldierÆs life in the fundamentally simple terms of everyday survival and also show us how this meshes with the complexities of global politics. After reading his books, one almost believes that if all the worldÆs leaders had to sit down and read A Rumor of War once a year, then perhaps we, as a species, could get beyond this stage of periodic carnage in the name of justice and the Fatherland and the virtues of...

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Philip Caputo's A Rumor of War. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 06:15, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1691656.html