Why They Were Soldiers Analysis

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Why They Were Soldiers Analysis
Ann Jones in the book ‘They Were Soldiers’ tries to explain the accrued effects of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq to the war veterans. It is further revealed to us that the impact of the war has been suppressed by the mainstream media. Jones talks about those who died in the war, calling them the fallen, and a more polite way to refer to the casualties of the war. She describes to us the work of the special unit called the Mortuary Affairs and told us how bad the job is, identifying the pieces of badly dislodged parts of the bodies uniquely to a specific corpse. She expresses the experiences of the war to be horrific in that body parts are blown apart completely smashing the lower torso of the body. She quotes Jessica Goodell, a mortuary affairs specialist who had been to Afghanistan, who explains that the experience of war never leaves the person the same as they were before the experience, it changes them entirely and traumatizes and haunts them forever even after the war has come to an end (Jones, 32).
Ann Jones then talks about the wounded in combat. She describes the tactics of the United States military as being the cause of many injuries accrued from war. She describes Walking out of vehicles to the paths formerly used by the Afghans and Russians who had previously occupied the area but forced out by the US army rather than being in their military vehicles as a cause to this large number of casualties.

Afghanistan is known to have many landmines, and improvised explosive devices left buried in the ground. These devices incapacitate the body, doing away with legs, fingers and the genitals. She says that the number of casualties that result from war has risen tremendously. Ann Jones also applauds the military for its measures to ensure that the wounded soldiers are attended to and get home safely and alive. She also talks about how the post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury situations are handled. The soldiers are trained to suck up things up and so they view themselves lucky after their comrades die in the war (Jones, 45).
But what is not taken into consideration is the kind of side effects that might arise as a result of that in the future. For instance, research has shown that this kind of military treatment has the side effect that leads to soldiers traumatizing their own families when they get home and also in some instances committing suicide. Policymakers need to come up with efficient frameworks and recovery sessions for the soldiers to ensure that the post-traumatic effects are mitigated.

Work cited
Jones, Ann. They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America’s Wars: The Untold Story. Haymarket Books, 2013.