Kadija Chenekan Writing I Professor Wabuke

Assignment Six
Dear Yvette, I always thought about war as something to be talked about and debated among civilians. Now I find myself asking this question does sharing our own opinions with soldiers be much more helpful in understanding war in general. I have wondered why in forming our own opinions about wars we usually only think about what we feel not what the people who fight in the wars, and those who are being fought feel. The more I questioned myself about the benefit of asking questions, the more I found that there is merit in it. People who have different opinions tend to learn more from others who hold different views. The question most clear in my mind is do we learn by questioning others perceptions or simply by listening as t why they have those perceptions. Marjane Satrapi proves my point by going to West Point and blankly stating to a full room of soldiers and cadets Im against the war in Iraq. This helped her and the cadets at the academy communicate with each other. Although she feared the feelings that her opinion might rouse in the academy, she went and spoke to them. Both parties had the others view. Although it might not have changed their opinions, it made them take a step and think. I believe that soldiers in war should go into the wart with both negative and positive opinions in mind. The positive opinions will inspire them to fight for what they believe in and the negative will allow them to be sympathetic towards their opponents. In all aspects of war, the truth is often distorted to mask the horrors of it, or simply because people rarely pay attention to the facts. This is further proved in How to Tell A True Story by Tim OBrien who writes

about a Vietnam Veteran who has no real grasp on what happened during the war. The events are distorted to suit his own mind, and his perception is clouded by the horrors he saw. He could not rely on one true event where all the facts merge together to form a coherent thought. This is an example of how one never truly sees or hears everything in a war to be able to discern between what happened and we thought happened is different. Asking the questions, and allowing ourselves to see the position of the two different opinions can lead to a more objective narration. A person who questions a different opinion allows themselves to see both sides of an issue. In the case of a war, the opinion of soldiers is clouded by their duty to country, then fellow soldiers. They become unreliable narrators. Satrapi makes the reader see how in her preconceived notion on her reception at WestPoint , she imagines herself being badly received and not heard, but upon arrival, she is heard after her speech and starts sharing her own ideas with the cadets of the academy.