Death of Primary Sources and Deterioration of Language
After World War II, much of the war and individual struggle of those affected by the war was documented using letters that had been sent back and forth between the home front and the distant battlefield such as those found in Since You Went Away. Today, however, letters are far less common due to new technologies such as email, blogs, telephones, and various web chatting software. The growing fear is that many of these sources leave no historical record of the trials and tribulations faced by these individuals during our current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In class, we have also questioned whether war blogs would take place of these letters and become the historical record of today. Unfortunately, many of these blogs are written with a sort of rawness to them. Spelling errors and cussing is not uncommon and many are simply amateur at best. However, I believe this is due to the deterioration of language over the years. People spoke much more academically and conservatively, which became evident in their writings. Today, I believe this explicitness and rawness creates a better picture of the war front because it is not watered down with words and niceties. You see war as it really is.
Also, there will never be any lack of documentation of the wars of today. What is lost in the lack of letters is more than made up for by the unprecedented media coverage of the wars. Reporters and writers put themselves in danger to cover these wars and report back stories, feelings and moods; anything that may be of use as historical evidence. Picture evidence and video footage does more to supplement this shortage of letters giving even greater coverage of war than in preceding wars.
In class, we read a few excerpts from Colby Buzzell’s blog entitled My War. I found it to be greatly interesting and even with its raw qualities; I found it to not lack literary merit. It documents some military protocol that may not have otherwise made it into mainstream media such as the implementation of forced letter writing to family and loved ones back home. With all these other sources taking up the slack of the letter shortage, wars are being documented greater today than have ever been before and there will never be a lack of information on the issue, lets just hope that this information is preserved and not lost in time or lost in the vastness of the World Wide Web.
I think you touch on a very interesting topic. The letters from past wars really have helped shaped the romanticism and image of them. I agree that there is no shortage of material recorded on today’s conflicts. However, the difference in type and content of material will surely help shape a different picture of modern day wars and those of the past. I also agree on the notion that the more realistic and everyday language provides a more true depiction of what soldiers and there loved ones go through during these times. No matter how the messages are delivered or written they are crucial to preserving the memory and messages of soldiers. This also alludes to the importance of things such as military blogs.