They shall grow old (My personal response)- Amelie

They shall grow old. The name of the movie They shall not grow old, felt like a lie to me as I wrote my first drafts. As I wrote in my draft: “to say I was shocked at the atrocity of these soldiers would be a lie” felt uneasy to me. Although I am not at all shocked it still felt wrong to write it. These soldiers- these boys were 16 to 19 years old, the thing that felt wrong, was that I overlooked the fact that they were just my age. Leaving the soft beds of their home on the thread of a promise of military glory. They shall grow old because there were 16 year-old’s tip-toeing among the adults, charging into the raging fire of war: unaware of the danger’s ahead.

In the beginning of the Documentary the host asked a few of these ex-military men If they regretted this war. The part that stuck with me more than anything in the documentary was their response. Many of them took a breath in, and casually told the host that they did not regret the war. Some even casually mentioning that it was for the will of the country. I feel conflicted. There were these men on the documentary- some of them 16 or 17 years old at the time of the war -that ran past bullets beyond bullets, watched their comraded die to a graveyard of mud and slept with an undying nerve at the back of their heads telling them that today was their day. These same men talking about the war as if to be distant memory of an old job. Although at the very same time: there was a little person in the back of my head understands such casualty. How could they think of such an event in their lives as a horrific event if their whole lives they’d been told that the war was just another job. Their drill sergeant told the that it was their job to toughen up. The years on the battle field taught them a sense of normalcy. Even as they came back home, the people around them didn’t want to talk about the war and acted as if they came back from a big vacation. It was once described to me that a human mind is like clay in the sense that it hardens over time: however before it hardens it’s as moldable as play-dough. How could these ex-soldiers known that the war they’d lived through was a million times worse that the version in their mind if people had been molding their brains to think little of it.

As I write out these paragraphs there was a feeling of something that has been alluding me for the longest time as I’m sitting in my desk. The feeling of nervousness? or uneasiness? As I write sentence on sentence on these young soldiers this feeling continues to pester me. I suppose for reasons beyond me I can relate to these soldiers. Which from an exterior point of view could sound very presumptuous teetering on ignorance. Although for reasons I don’t have words for: the tone of the soldiers’ voice, the fact that these boys of 17 and 19 years old getting looked up and down as if shiny new weapons and told to grow up: swallow their tears and follow orders. Feels all to familiar. I remember teachers, peers, instructors, family tell me to grow up my entire life. Telling me to swallow my tears, do another hour, take pride or that they know I can do better. The feeling of being told to be an adult even though I’m not. As I sit in my desk I can’t help but feel a sense of sympathy mixed with a sense of familiarness. I suppose everyone does in the bigger picture. Everyone gets told to grow up: to to swallow their tears, do another hour or take pride.

As I reflect on this documentary the impact of the movie begins to sink in; the sense of uneasiness, the familiarness and the confliction. The feeling that life in this unforgivable world everyone is just running past bullets beyond bullets, watching their comrades die to a graveyard of mud and sleeping with an undying nerve at the back of their heads telling them that today is their day. Even if these bullets and mud looks different in everyone’s life. They shall not grow old made me look at this war an it’s soldiers in a different light- a brighter one. One in which it made me reflect on how these soldiers were told to grow up. Just as many of us were to to grow up. They shall grow old because they did. I did… We did.