check this out! Racism is still alive!

http://immaculata.mrooms.net/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=106477#p302789

1)      Trumbo knows “Johnny Got His Gun” will never be a financial success- Trumbo credits the limited success to the fact that during that time period in the US, Americans did not want to see such an involved, non-relaxing (as Trumbo calls it), gruesome film. During such troubling times as the 70’s, which included the Vietnam War, Trumbo believed that Johnny Got His Gun was too much/too relevant/too personal for people to take.

2)      Trumbo compares “Johnny Got His Gun” to a famous work of Art- In his conversation; Trumbo refers to a work by Renoir, “the grand illusion.” This work received no accolades and was in no way highly sought after when it was first produced. Now, it has been encompassed with fame. I don’t think Trumbo is just attempting to show off his Impressionist artist knowledge, but rather he knew that in time his meaning would surface. At face value, Johnny Got His Gun was turned away, but in time Trumbo knew that when the right audience saw it, his message would be clear. It was not made in attempt to glorify war, but rather to deliver home the personal/individual toll it takes on those involved.

3)      Trumbo speaks of his “limited audience”- Trumbo expresses no concern for the limited audience he knew his screenplay would originally reach. He made the book and the characters exactly what he wanted to because, that was the only way to make them. He speaks of how if he were to concern himself with the greater populous, and not his intended audience, the essence of the novel/film would have been lost in the quest. Johnny the main character would have been a combination of so many different individual human aspects, that he would have ended up with no specific message/audience at all. I believe Trumbo refers to those characters as “bastard children.”

Reflection:  When I originally listened to Trumbo speak, he was hard to follow. He speaks with such a flare that is both catchy, and sleep inducing at times. However, there is no question that he is immensely intellectual. Trumbo spoke about writing books about characters, and writing books about ideas. There is a fine separation of the two that I agree upon. A book written of ideas will form characters around the events (or ideas), and the emotions and feelings are drawn from the occurrence of specific events. On the other hand, in character driven stories, the characters develop on a more personal and relatable level to onlookers. A connection can be made easier to a novel that centers itself on a character developing cognitively, emotionally, and or spiritually.

Source of Generated Response:

Dalton Trumbo speaking at UCLA 5/17/1972 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhAXSDpvqVU 

The return of a Soldier to home soil is one of the most jubilant occasions. Caught up in all of the excitement, however, is the harsh reality of that soldier adjusting back into “everyday society.” Combat is not like our daily 9 to 5.

Paul is completely defeated by the end of the novel, psychologically. He speaks consistently of being dark, empty and emotionless. Paul is very aware that the sort of transformations he has endured change veterans in a way that society back home will never comprehend. If he and the other soldiers were allowed years sooner Paul believed “out of the suffering and the strengths of our experiences we might have unleashed a storm” (Remarque, 1929, page 294).  Now the only words Paul can use to describe himself and fellow war comrades are “weary, broken, burnt out, rootless, without hope, and unable to find our way anymore” (Remarque, 1929, page 294). Paul knows his existence is essentially, unnecessary.

All the veterans returning to Germany will be useless in Paul’s eyes. They are needless in their current conditions, older, emotionally distraught, and have no professional skills. What use are they to a progressing society? The only skills they have are blood-thirst, and battlefield survival. WWI vets are basically unessential to anything because they are leftovers of what as once a human. Paul was stripped down and gutted of anything other than just flesh and bone. He had no dreams, no love, no aspirations, no feeling. He just was. The people surrounding Paul would have no idea what it means to see no significance to self-existence or a future. “Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone and so without hope that I can confront them without fear” (Remarque, 1929, page 295). 

check this out!

http://immaculata.mrooms.net/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=101983#p290829

The composition below is a personal reaction to the gas warfare seen on the Bottom of page 67- and Middle of page 69. It tells of Paul’s personal experience during a gas bombing. The introduction of gas warfare in WWI, was something the world had never seen before in human combat.

WWI was the first war to see the use of gas as a weapon. First used by the French, tear gas, it was later picked up by the Germans and made incredibly lethal. Gas was effective, and what is effective gets used. It was cheaper than producing mass amounts of ammunition, and destroyed the enemy in much larger quantities. Either way if the gas didn’t kill the enemy, it scared them out of their trenches so an onslaught of shells could. However, gas warfare was not accredited for its “kill rate” but instead for how it altered the ENTIRE battlefield.

            General John J. Pershing once stated “that gas was a significant weapon, but not as a producer of battle deaths” (Blodgett, page 2, 2009). Gas was more renowned for the difficulties it produced in general combat.  For example: A gas bomb is deployed, gas masks are installed, and all of the sudden having to look through both the gas and the gas mask and fire a weapon, a whole new experience. The thick gaseous air also made communication more difficult. Field commands were unable to be delivered in a trench full of poisonous gas. Even as the enemy adapted to fighting with and within the toxins, the use of gas filled artillery shells developed increasingly high levels of psychological devastation rather than number of kills (Blodgett, page 2, 2009).

            Gas warfare demoralized the enemy. The purpose of many of the attacks was to "surprise, shock, and worry the opponent." Gas attacks often occurred at irregular intervals in the quiet sectors of the front.  These attacks were especially successful as the soldiers who had been sent to these quiet areas to rest, instead found themselves tense and on the alert much of the time (Blodgett, page 3, 2009).

            The article I read in regards to gas warfare in WWI makes a point that is easy to analyze. Chemical weapons are classified as weapons of mass destruction by the United Nations. Their production was then outlawed in 1993 by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993. As gruesome as it may have seemed to the modern world, the majority of military officials in WWI looked at chemical warfare as “just another hazard that the defenders had to face”. In 1915, anything that would do damage to the opposition was accepted, no limitations. The use of gas warfare should not be belittled, nor exaggerated (Blodgett, page 3, 2009). It was an advancement of the time that changed how enemy forces engaged one another in battle, but ultimately as time moved on was seen as inhumane.

Final Thought:  Quote "There is no app for boots on the ground. Never has been. Never will be!"  

Final Comment:  Human innovation will always drive technology and its advancements that I can say for sure. Whether or not technology will do the job of a soldier someday, I cannot assure anyone. A soldier is one of a country’s most honorable citizens. There is still now and always will be a strong pride in having a military full the country’s own flesh and blood, a real soldier; not a machine. Technology and Humans both make errors, which may be why we use a nice combination of both.  

References

Remarque, E. (1929). All Quiet on the Western Front. New York: Ballantine Books.

Blodgett, B. (2009). Germany’s Use of Chemical Warfare in WWI: First World War. Retrieved from: http://firstworldwar.com/features/chemical_warfare.htm

A Response to All Quiet on the Western Front

Part One

Erich Remarque writes his novel, All is Quiet on the Western Front, with an authentic and intimate point of view. When the First World War broke out, the rising senses of nationalism amongst the Great Powers infused their even more powerful senses of militarism. All of a sudden, across the continent of Europe, war, battle and being a military hero were glorified beyond any realistic conception. The soon, rapid expansion of their militaries would result in many young men, including Remarque himself, joining their military with great enthusiasm. For these future soldiers their misconceptions of what was really to occur, was no fantasy like it was made out to be. Remarque uses his novel to express his deep and personal declaration that “death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it” (Remarque, 1928, p. 0).

 One of the hardships, or “non-adventures”, that narrator and main character Paul Baumer has to face is the death of his lifelong friend, Franz Kemmerich. Baumer and Kemmerich had enlisted with the same enthusiasm and eagerness as previously explained, but not long after they were deployed, there lay Kemmerich certain for death in a dressing-room. At that point, Baumer describes his friends: “Under the skin life no longer pulses, it has already pressed out of the boundaries of the body. Death is working its way through from within. It already has command in the eyes” (Remarque, 1928, p. 14).

Until that point Baumer had no memories of Kimmerich other than the fun filled innocence of the short 19 years they had both been alive. Kimmerich, who was once a young man full of life and promise, now:

….only weeps, his head turned aside. He does not speak of his mother or his brothers and sisters. He says nothing; all of that lies behind him; he is entirely alone now with his little life of nineteen years, and cries because it leaves him. (Remarque, 1928, p. 31)

            Baumer later goes on to describe his experience with the death of Kimmerich as “the most disturbing and hardest parting that I have ever seen” (Remarque, 1928, p. 31).

Having to accept that one of your best child-hood friends is lying and waiting to die, I imagine, is no adventure. The eager soldiers joined the war awaiting their hero’s welcome, and  instantly underwent a mental and emotional transformation by witnessing the slow death of a beloved friend. However, it was not just their friend; death was all around them. They knew nothing of its sight, smell, or feel. Still, they quickly learned, as they are hardened by watching fellow friends/comrades suffer unthinkable tragedies. Some become so sad while hearing grown men pierce the air with their cries and calls for their mothers as they lay helplessly a mangled heap of what was once a body. Baumer talks about their new selves becoming “hard, suspicious, pitiless, vicious, and tough” (Remarque, 1928, p.26). Remarque is able to make it quite clear that, where as some see war as this glorious adventure, those who endure it would never wish it on their worst enemies.

Part Two

The fact that war is said to still require “boots on the ground,” is not a shocking claim. War itself is a very personal affair. There is an uncanny satisfaction that leaders receive when they watch destruction and victory with the bare hands of man. There is nothing so personal as being face to face with the enemy on the field. The technology of modern war may be new school, with “smart bombs” and new land/air crafts, but the beliefs of a military are just as old school as ever. Militarism and nationalism exist just as strongly as they did in the years of WWI (1914-1918). War is just as glorified now as it was then. An enormous sense of pride is felt in fighting for your country (rightfully so); not having an unreliable machine do it. It is up to the people to defend the land, and the good name of their country’s flag. There will always be showing off of new weapons and stronger forces. People are always looking to see who has the bigger guns. No one has the money to mass produce fighting machines. Unfortunately, it is still believed it is “cheaper” to throw the people in to be sacrificed in battle. I mean, after all people are just meaningless and endless, right?

           

References:

Remarque, Erich. (1928). All Quiet on the Western Front.

            

JERRY'S FINAL THOUGHTS


The role of technology has certainly, and clearly increased in recent years. Much of the spike could be accredited to the discovery that every child does not learn the same. Some people are very against it, and others all for it. Like anything else, I think it has great potential, IF it is implemented and used properly.

Teachers have, unfortunately, become less and less of a main source for information for kids. If they want to know something, its just easier to Google it! At the same time, that is great! All that information is available at the drop of a hat, and in abundance. However, the teacher has to remember they STILL HAVE TO TEACH. Not everything on the internet is easily understood right away, or even true! The teacher should be able to take information students find off the web, and use it to enhance their OWN lessons. Not jsut allow the internet to be the sole provider of learning.

It would be a total and utter lie to not admit that there is not some app or web-based tool (such as Web 2.0) available that could enhance a child's education. The interaction level of such technology has sky-rocketed. It is not just all computer games. Much of what can be found, is there to help the students enhance their projects with video, pictures etc.Other applications give students the chance to reflect on the day's learning by blogging, or share their thoughts on chat rooms with the rest of the class.There is much more available for learners who  require alternative means of expression. Learners are taken away from the pencil and paper, and given the chance to work with more imagination, and a more comprehensive display of individual knowledge.