Category: war

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My SAT Blogger Challenge Results

About a month ago I entered the SAT Blogger Challenge, an experiment to see how regular “bloggers” like myself compare to high school students in the United States with regard to essay writing ability.
I got a 4.

My Writing Faced the Challenge 4

The challenge:

Directions: Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.
‘I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.’
– Booker T. Washington

Assignment: What is your opinion on the idea that struggle is a more important measure of success than accomplishment? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

Without further ado, here is my essay spelling mistakes and all.

Success as measured by struggle rather than in accomplishment conveys the romantic notion that it doesn’t matter how well you do, so long as you try.

If success could be defined as merely the amount of effort one applied to any given problem then it would be fair to say that both the Russians and the Americans were ’successful’ in the race for the moon, but it was the United States that landed there first. Continuing with that line of thinking, if struggle is all that matters, then the current war in Iraq has been very successful for the United States – from start to present. It looks like they are headed for a lot of success in the future too.

It is important to remember that the struggle to accomplish a given goal is a very important part of success, however, I believe, that it’s disingenuous to pretend that success can be defined merely by how hard one attempts to complete their goal.

Success is synonomous with accomplishment while struggle only relates to success in that often a successful endevour was possible due to conviction, deadication, and hard work. So, while the importance of struggle should not be ignored, a success can only accurately measured in terms of accomplishment. The bright math student who correctly completes his homework with very little effort is much more successful than the struggling student who slaves over his work and yet despite his effort does a horrible job.

Success must be defined as the accomplishment. The struggle is merely what helps one complete that accomplishment.

See Dave Munger’s analysis on the challenge.

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Random Shootings in Iraq

This is perhaps the worst thing I have seen come out of Iraq. Frankly words will not express my anger and outrage. (Viewer discretion is advised)

Video of Random Shootings in Iraq.

It’s a video apparently taped by US mercenaries in Iraq shooting random civilians [cars that are getting too close] while driving down the freeway. (via)

The Telegraph.co.uk’s report: ‘Trophy’ Video exposes private security contractors shooting up Iraqi drivers.

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Drayton Valley Bound For Remembrance Day Weekend

I’m heading off to Drayton Valley (a small town just west of Edmonton) to visit my sister and her family for the long weekend.

It’s Remembrance Day tomorrow so as a special treat here is a photo of my Grandpa Scoville’s war medals.

medals

He served in the Canadian Navy during World War II primarily posted to convoy escorts and submarine hunting. He had plenty of war stories, but I was either too little or wasn’t around when they were being shared.

One particularly interesting story was when he snuck onto a German warship that was docked at a neutral port and stole the Captain’s alarm clock. He felt so guilty about what a stupid thing it was to do that (I think) he eventually gave the clock away just to keep from reminding himself about that adventure. Somebody on his ship stole it from him.

For those of you more interested in cartoon / viking / battle of the bands type war, check out Jason Forrest’s animated video for ‘War Photographer’.

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WWII Soldier Found Frozen in Ice

Two climbers on a Sierra Nevada glacier discovered an ice-encased body believed to be that of an airman whose plane crashed in 1942.

World War II Soldier discovered in ice

From CNN:

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — Two climbers on a Sierra Nevada glacier discovered an ice-encased body believed to be that of an airman whose plane crashed in 1942.

The man was wearing a World War II-era U.S. Army Corps parachute when his frozen head, shoulder and arm were spotted on 13,710-foot Mount Mendel in Kings Canyon National Park, park spokeswoman Alex Picavet said Wednesday.

Park rangers and specialists camped on the mountainside in freezing weather for an excavation expected to take several days. The body was 80% encased in ice, Picavet said.

“We’re not going to go fast,” she said. “We want to preserve him as much as possible. He’s pretty intact.”

The excavation crew included an expert from a military unit that identifies and recovers personnel who have been missing for decades.

Park officials believe the serviceman may have been part of the crew of an AT-7 navigational training plane that crashed on Nov. 18, 1942. The wreckage and four bodies were found in 1947 by a climber.

(CNN video)

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War: What is it Good For?

Today is the 60th anniversary of the detonation of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. I asked my dad what he thought about it and, as expected, he said the Japanese got what they deserved. His main reason for feeling that way is the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

When I visited Japan in 1993, I was surprised at the extreme awareness and even fear of nuclear war within the Japanese students that I met. I couldn’t help but feeling that the country was still reeling from its effects. Everyone I met there were all very peaceful people and it was easy to see that many people who weren’t even born at the time of the war had their lives drastically ruined because of the radiation.

Having said that, during my visit to Malaysia I was shocked to learn of the atrocities that the Japanese soldiers of the Second World War committed in countries like Malaysia and China during their campaign across South Eastern Asia. It seems to me that if you are going to say “they deserved it” this is a better reason, but not that I’m saying that. I still think there could have been a better way.

The Atomic Bomb probably did save many of the lives of Allied Soldiers by ending the war and preventing the need for a large scale ground battle. I wonder if repeated bombing campaigns would have done the same thing, it gives one pause to wonder whether or not dropping the bomb was really necessary. It’s clearly a complicated issue, even 60 years after the fact.

Did the ends justify the means? Would the US have done the same thing to Germany if the war wasn’t going as quickly as it did? What about all the civilians that were killed during and after the explosion — was it really necessary? I guess the only thing that can be safely said is that war is a tremendous waste of life.

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AWOL in America

What is life like for new recruits in the climate of the Iraq War? This article gives a good portrait of those who jump ship and why they do it.

Particularly facinating to me, is the statistics on firing rates. Apparently in World War II only 15 to 20 percent of the combat infantry were willing to fire their weapons this number has steadily increased over the years.

By the Korean War, the firing rate had gone up to 55 percent; in the Vietnam war, it was around 90 to 95 percent. How did the military achieve this? As Grossman writes, “Since World War II, a new era has quietly dawned in modern warfare: an era of psychological warfare — psychological warfare conducted not upon the enemy, but upon one’s own troops. … The triad of methods used to achieve this remarkable increase in killing are desensitization, conditioning, and denial defense mechanisms.”

I have never been put in a situation like the ones a new soldier has to face, but I would hope that if I did have to go to war, it would be a war I could believe in.

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The War in Iraq – A Soldiers Viewpoint

I received a forwarded email this morning quoting a blog posting of a letter from a soldier in Iraq.

The gist of what this guy says is that while he is grateful for people “supporting the troops” he is disappointed that they don’t support the war.

My quick response to that is: the people don’t support the war because the reasons used to justify it were lies, it’s a waste of money and people, and it’s not going to make a long term difference.

Of course he supports the war, he’s a gun toting, warmongering soldier who loves kicking ass over there, and he just wishes the American people could understand how fun that is.

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Polling the Iraqis

In a nationwide CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll, 3,444 Arabic and Kurdish Iraqis were interviewed face-to-face regarding social and political conditions in Iraq since the war began. The data is raw, but it certainly is interesting.

All interviews were conducted in the residences of the respondents. These poll results are based on interviews conducted in all parts of Iraq, both urban and rural, representing about 93% of the total Iraqi population. Nearly all the interviews were conducted between March 22-April 9, 2004. An extremely small number of interviews were conducted between April 16-22.

See the results (PDF).