Welcome...and initial guidelines...

This blog will be used in the spring of 2008 by 80+ students at Drexel University to investigate the effects of Iraq on culture and the reverse. Our goal will be to better understand why the US is in Iraq, and to question whether literature can help us on this journey.

Weekly plans and other materials will always be posted in Vista, not this blog. So go to Bb Vista to get the discussion prompts and other instructions.

I intend this blog to manage our discussions and track our collective investigation.

You should have received an email from me inviting you to become a contributor to this blog. The email was sent Monday afternoon to your official Drexel email address.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Compassion Fatigue - The Sandbox

The overall goal of the all the blogs written in The Sandbox is to inform us, the non-fighters in the war of what it is actually like being in the war itself, from the soldiers direct perspectives. But this blog takes a very interesting spin on that – readers are informed of what goes on in a more unconventional sense. We gain insight on what occurs on any given day with a behind-the-scenes impression of what the war is really like.

This light-hearted way of gaining insight best describes the tone of the entire blog. Although I only read a few blogs, there was not one that appeared to be a cry of shame or pain based on what is occurring overseas. One blog in particular, Compassion Fatigue, talks about how one man is just tired of everything and has a very cynical, careless view in regards to people in need of help. He says one man approached one of the humvees that the author was in, knocking on the windows, in dire need of help. The author of the blog claimed that this man became annoying, and he merely shooed him away.

The same author goes on in his personal blog to share how there was a radio broadcast that he make a joke about in regards to cigarettes. He claimed that humor was really the only thing that was making this war move on with ‘ease’. This particular author seems very down-to-earth, and he makes an excellent point when it comes to the essentials of humor – humor is just that…essential.

The overall blog brings a very interesting view of the events that have occurred in the war thus far. They don’t look at the big picture so much, but the little detailed events that impact the soldiers’ lives in the biggest possible way. Personally, I enjoyed this blog, and it gives me a sense of hope as far as the soldiers’ mentality goes – if humor can be found within the soldiers’ hearts, then sanity lies adjacent in their minds.

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