“War means such a waste of life even when people don’t die” – Vera Brittain

A common theme in war literature is the loss innocence. Here Vera Brittain brings up the notion that it is the young who are losing more than just there lives to war. Those who have the most in front of them are forced to sacrifice it all, whether actually dying or not. Even if the young do not lose their life they can lose their innocence, they can lose who they used to be, and they can lose each other. Vera Brittain is an example of the extreme personal changes that can derive from not only losing oneself to war, but also losing someone else. Vera, a dedicated student, became a dedicated nurse who also went above a beyond when Roland went off to war. The dynamics of her life changed drastically and this experience change her personality. On page 215 of A Testament of Youth, she writes to Roland,

I feel I shall never be the same person again,

and on 218 continues to say,

War kills other things besides physical life, and I sometimes feel that little by little Individuality of You is being as surely buried as the bodies are of those who lie beneath the trenches of Flanders and France.

And after Roland is killed she undergoes more drastic changes. She become devoid of motivation, she spends hours doing the same task, she cannot live her life how she used to, it has all become too trivial.

Vera Brittian, the youth whose life was being changed in this instance was that of a young adults, but the fingers of war are stretch out and reach even younger generations. “Children of the Fallen”, puts it very concisely by saying,

War notoriously robs parents of their sons, but it also steals husbands and fathers, and increasingly wives and mothers.

A rising number of American children’s lives are being altered by this war. In this same article, Charlie Moskos, a Northwestern University sociologist say,

The proportion of married soldiers is higher today than in any previous war. The military today is a better-paid career than most high-school graduates could aspire to otherwise, which may explain why the average male soldier now gets married at 24–three years younger than the rest of the population.

This leaves behind not only wives, but also children. Even if these children do not lose a parent, like Vera, are forced to deal with the effects of an absent parent. But these changes are not always completely detrimental.

Caroline, a 15 year old girl, whose father in is the Marines and was stationed in Iraq, writes,

I am independent in a way that I don’t think I would be if my dad hadn’t left…Every child of a man or women in the armed forces will hurt some way or another thanks to the service but they will also blossom from it.

Similarly, despite the fact that the war devastated Vera and took her fiancé, brother and many other close friends, it made her stronger. She became a renowned author and independent feminist. Life may never be easy or explicable, but I believe everything happens for a reason and that often identity grows most feverishly out of devastation. So while I agree that war robs many of their lives and future, I do not fully agree that, “war means such a waste of life even when people don’t die.” After a forest fire new life can grow from the ashes, and I believe this is true about the incendiary we call war.

• Brittain, Vera. Testament of Youth (Penguin Classics). New York: Penguin Classics, 2005. Print.
• Caroline. “Daddy’s Little Girl.” Military Kids Blog. Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission, Inc, 29 July 2009. Web. 07 Oct. 2009. http://militarykidsblog.com/?p=52.
• “CHILDREN OF THE FALLEN | Newsweek.com.” Newsweek – National News, World News, Health, Technology, Entertainment and more… | Newsweek.com. Web. 07 Oct. 2009. <http://www.newsweek.com/id/49171>.

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