Natanael Fortunato INTL 3111 Mr.

Robert Arnold 01 June 2011 Microtheme 3 Kandi Tayebi in Warring Memories makes a comparison between coaches planning a strategy to win a game and generals planning strategies for an assault to win a war. It is surprising the similarity between sports and war. For example, we all have seen stadiums turned into battle fields by fanatics fighting for their teams. Being necessary for the police to intervene, people have died fighting against each other. Something else that caught my attention is the phrase the author uses. Television screen separates her pain from my world (Tayebi 2). Seeing scenes of war on television is very different than being at the scene of war. As I said in the classroom, when we watch it on CNN it does not produce the same effect that it would produce if we were there. We dont feel the emotions of being there. The college professor, the American-born wife, comes from work and while conveying the narrative of the day declares to her husband, the Iranian solder, of the squirrel that fell from a tall tree and how it struggles while dying slowly. Her husband responds, Imagine if that were a human being (Tayebi 3). Because he was in a war he was used to see people dying the slow death like the squirrel, he understands. Watching television would not help anyone fully comprehend the realities of war. War cannot be understood by anyone who has not been in a war or lived through it. War is immoral, dirty, and uncompassionate. War does not recognize family or friends and this is

where I want to connect my next article The Sniper. In the story, an informant came and pointed upon a roof where the sniper was. The turret opened. A mans head and shoulders appeared, looking toward the sniper.

The sniper raised his riffle and fired. The head fell heavily on the turret wall (Flaherty 1). The sniper had killed his brother. I would like to connect two other essays here also. There are situations where it is hard to be moral whereby people go against their values, even though I dont agree with it. In Shooting an Elephant, George Orwell said, I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better, I was young and illeducated and I had had to think out my problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the East. He did not do anything until he was forced to by the crowd. He was an accomplice. It perfectly linked with Tadeusz Borowskis in Silence. He was there helping the Nazis translating, unloading the transport, burying and even helping those who did not wish to live anymore to die. He was an accomplice; he facilitated atrocities committed by the Nazis. This is why he survived the holocaust. However it can be taken from a different perspective. Orwell was forced to work for the empire by necessity and Borowski was taken prisoner and forced to work for the Nazis. Given the fact that he was bilingual they could used him as an interpreter. The Sniper was forced to kill by the war. There is a connection also in Silence and The Sniper. Borowski and the Sniper did the same thing in order to survive the war.

I would not like to think that Borowski committed suicide because of remorse but it is very ironic that when he decided to commit suicide he chose to die the same death that many of his inmates died at the concentration camp, breathing gas from a stove like if it was the gas chamber. I question how he chose a death that he survived previously, in the same way that many in the concentration camp died from. I can also elaborate that maybe it was the easiest way that he found to deal with suicide and he probably did not have any remorse because it was a job that he was forced to do. If he did wrong it was under duress.