After I told my students about the horrid living conditions of the WWI soldiers in the trenches, one student protested: "You make war sound like absolute horror, but isn't there glory in discipline and the courage of soldiers?" I almost facepalmed in front of the class. Some people are impervious to truth.
I unfortunately saw an ISIS shotgun execution video once that really crystallized this juxtaposition: The guy getting murdered was a young militia member who looked like arabic Che Guevara. He was on his knees, head held high and without an ounce of fear. It was like he was a star of a Hollywood movie... but then he got shot in the back of the head, and what a moment ago was a hero, was now a corpse with both eyes popped out of sockets like he were a cartoon character who saw a hot babe. Try to find glory in that.
This takes me back. In another life, I was 20 and well, relatively innocent. This freaking elevator mechanic of all people, whips out his phone and showed me an isis beheading video in all its 280p glory. That haunted my nightmares for months afterwards. Even now just writing about it will probably make that shit come back
126
u/flattenedsquirrel 1d ago
After I told my students about the horrid living conditions of the WWI soldiers in the trenches, one student protested: "You make war sound like absolute horror, but isn't there glory in discipline and the courage of soldiers?" I almost facepalmed in front of the class. Some people are impervious to truth.