Coming back from the war – Chris Keller : Post reading Activity

I thought I would feel better than this today. I thought I won’t hate this stupid, useless, merciless inevitable American reality. Today was my first day back from the war and I found out the horrifying truth about humanity: it never changes, not even when horror, death and brutality hits it. I participated in this war that was full of these awful events: troops dying, countries starving and pilots crashing for no reason. I thought that when I come back, people would learn. I thought people would realize that these things, this destruction cannot occur again, although I was wrong. No one behaves differently around here. It’s all about the money: Father keeps working and making war money, believing it’s normal for me to do the same. the news hasn’t changed, the blindness of our people is still there, even if they have seen the worst in people. No one seems to care that thousands were killed, including their sons. Everyone around here keeps their happy oblivious faces as if the world hasn’t almost ended these last couple of ears. They aren’t adjusting, they aren’t coping: they are just pretending it didn’t happen, that it doesn’t matter. Everyone here feels as if they ignore it, these horrible memories will go away, they believe it won’t happen again. The sad thing is I can’t prove them wrong. You can’t teach a person your values, no matter how hard you try. The only way to succeed is to let them fall by themselves.