The War Essay

     Since the beginning of mankind there has been conflict. And ever since that first conflict there have been people who disagree on how to solve the conflict. There are people who want to fight out the problem, and there are people who want to resolve the problem peacefully. Fighting and war are something that everyone encounters, whether it be for your country, for your family, or for your tree fort. So the question for everyone is, is violence the answer? Will violence bring peace? The answer is no. War only creates a bigger mess. War only further deteriorates society, families, and human beings. In The War, Stephen Simmons left his family to serve in the Vietnam war and he returned a wounded man. When he gets home he discovers that his two children, Stew and Lydia, are in a war of their own. He tries to teach them the lessons he learned in Vietnam and to steer them away from fighting. Upon watching the film one learns that war is not the answer for solving conflict.

      Passion is a strong feeling and usually when two sides are fighting their passion can override their reason and they can often get so caught up in trying to beat down the other side that they lose sight of what they are even fighting for. Lydia and Stew are in a "war" with the Lipnickie kids over the tree fort that Lydia, Stew, and their friends made. The fort was made from stolen goods from the junkyard where the Limpnickie kids live and when they found out, they felt the tree fort should belong to them. The fighting escalates to such drastic violence amoung the children so quickly that they lose sight of the main reason they are fighing. The tree fort eventually topples to the ground, resulting in no ownership for either side. Lydia even says "War is like a big machine that no one really knows how to run and when it gets out of control it ends up destroying the things you thought you were fighting for, and a lot of other things you kinda forgot you had." (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111667/quotes). The fighting escaleted so much that Billy, the youngest of the Lipnickie kids, nearly lost his life. Is getting revenge or getting ownership over a tree house worth the life of a young boy? This same concept transfers to the large scale of war in a country. Is containing the spread of communism worth losing thousands of lives of innocent soldiers? War only creates more problems.
     It is certain that many people believe that fighting is the only way to solve a conflict and history depicts tis over and over. However, what the fighters of the world need to recognize is the cost, the damage, the hurt. Like Stephen Simmons, thousands of soldiers suffer from post traumatic stress. Experincing things as brutal as war are not meant to be experienced. It damages people from the inside out. The things that soldiers see cannot be unseen, they are forever penciled into their memories, haunting their lives. The things they do cannot be undone either, they stick with them and can forever change their life. In The War, Stephen Simmons learns that the decision you make can have a tremendous effect. While at war, Stephen's friend got injured and Stephen tried to save him but couldn't and he chose to get on the helicopter and save himself. This decision plagued his life from that point on. He teaches his children that fighting isn't worth it and they need to be careful about the decisions they make. He says "Boy, sometimes all it takes is a split second for you to do something you'll regret the whole rest of your life." (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111667/quotes). If the problem was chosen to be solved another way than fighting, those life-altering decisions could have been more thoughtful made or avoided all together. 
     Some will always see war as the answer. But if someday the people who believe in reason over war out number those who don't, the world will know peace.