A War Issue

In my geography class we have been learning about Eastern Europe. A lot of our time has been spent learning about the Second World War and all of the struggles that went along with it. As we learned, many of the Eastern European countries are still working hard to get their lives back together.
Today we saw a video about the fall of communism. I didn’t realize that the Communist party lost power pretty recently in history. I also didn’t realize that the battle to stop communism was so brutal and warish. The Second World War was brutal and I know that but I didn’t know how much communism was involved in that war.
The point of this blog is more about something that really bothered me when some boy in my Geography class said it. During the video, the showed tanks and bombs going off and firing at the nearby buildings. Some boy decided to be a little ‘clown’ and say “That’s so awesome! Look at the tanks!” I guarantee that he wouldn’t be saying the same words if those tanks were firing at HIS house!!
Before the video started, our teacher filled us in a little about the Cold War and before that. She explained how we made an atomic bomb, so Russia built two, in turn we built three more and so on and so forth. In the end, she said we could have blown up the world one hundred and seventy-nine times. Of course, all of the boys in our class yelled out, “Cool! That would be so awesome!” Once again, I guarantee that it wouldn’t be too cool if the bomb dropped on their roofs!
What bothers me the most is that they make fun of the so-called ‘ugly people’ on the movie. They don’t even take into account that about half of those people are dead and the other half died in the war! I mean, by the time you are in the ninth grade, you should be mature enough to respect people. The people living in Russia, will look Russian. They probably won’t look like Britney Spears!
I wish they would realize that these terrors are real and not the things in video games. Recently, one of my cousins named Sarah decided to join the National Guard. I respect everyone in the army, but Sarah wouldn’t survive in the war! She is a little, girly, seventeen year old! Her reasoning is this:
“I played a lot of video games so death won’t affect me as much as it would.” Ok, it’s different to see a man die in front of you in a video game where you can just start the game over. In the real world, somebody dies and you can hear their screams and see their blood oozing out onto the ground. Luckily, her mom talked some sense into her and she no longer wants to join the army.
This is just kind of a warning for all the guys who think that bombs are ‘totally awesome’ and tanks are ‘so sweet’. Imagine waking up and falling asleep with the ring of guns in the background all the time. Imagine going outside and seeing tanks driving by you and your friend on your way home from school. Imagine all of the suffering that actual living people have gone through just so they could have the freedoms we have. Think about that before you say that weapons are ‘cool’.