See information below Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

See information below - Essay ExampleThe frustration of being nevertheless two credits shy of graduation and newly married is touched on briefly, but is an grand fact that helps clarify his frustration. As he takes us on his journey into the horrors of war, we begin to see a pattern of disorganization from those in authority, and vague answers to the young manpowers questions about their return home. One contingency underscores this disorganization clearly. On a mission to a local Iraqi bank, two soldiers ar left field standing guard outside. While the rest of the group is inside the bank enjoying a precious few moments in air conditioning, insurgents fire upon the two men outside. One of the men is shot very poorly in the neck. Trying to get medevac to the scene proves to be the most difficult part of the incident. It seems commanding officers and their staff, do not leave the compound. Tracking the exact location of the bank and dispatching the appropriate help becomes a sou rce of frustration for the men on the scene. What is telling in this scene is not that the two men were fired upon, but the slow and disorganized response from their commanding officers.The promise of going home is held in front of the men frequently throughout the story only to be withheld from them over and over again. They are told, just keep up the work a little longer. Well be home soon.(Crawford 19) The commanding officers seem blase with the stress and fatigue that these men are facing, and only seem concerned with their own plans of glory and recognition.The imagery that Crawford uses gives us a land that is as bleak and unwelcoming as his first descriptions of the storm. We see a pastoral decimated by war and its citizens living in squalor. The building was full of rotting feces. Piles of it, along with MRE sight paper, littered the floor. The heat had turned the building into an oven, and the smell was overpowering.(Crawford 32) The gritty descriptions of crumbling bui ldings and human waste flowing in the streets fill the pages and lend to the expression of a complete breakdown of a society.Interwoven through the stories of fear and enervation there are some moments of humor that remind the reader that these are ordinary men propel into extraordinary circumstances. They are trying desperately to hang on to a sense of normalcy in an alien world. The story of Cum, a homeless Iraqi child, and his friendship with Crawford clearly display the overall feeling of desperation. While the story is told in a dispassionate way, the sense that the boy meant a great bed to Crawford is apparent based on his statement that they talked for hours without understanding each others language. Without language to join them they manage to take form a friendship based on the childs innocent and eager nature. Eventually because of Iraqi attitudes toward Americans, something happens to the child. What that something is, is never make clear, but Crawfords guilt over th e incident is palpable.The frequent mention of drugs seems to be another desperate onset to escape the situation that he finds himself. One incident has a medic injecting Crawford with morphine just for the calmness the drug will allow him. Crawford spends a day in bed after the morphine