LA Home learning 24-25May 2011

They unloaded the dead and maimed right before our eyes (Maiming is an act of physical injury that degrades the appearance or function of any living body, but in this case, the body being maimed is dead)
They washed out the blood, we loaded our rucks and then took to the skies (They washed out the blood of those who died in the helicopter and asked the author and his mates to go into the helicopter.)
Over the mountains, villages, and valleys we flew (The destination is far away from the starting point.)
Where we would land we had not a clue (The soldiers were not briefed before the mission, not knowing what would happen)
Bullets are flying, the LZ is hot (LZ stands for landing zone, and when it is hot, it means that there are many hostiles around it.)
We're leaving this bird whether we like it or not (the bird is actually a helicopter, and the soldiers have no choice but to leave the helicopter)
30 seconds they yelled, Lock N Load and grab your shit (anxiety because they never use correct terms and Lock N Load would mean reloading the gun and preparing oneself)
Get ready to go and make it quick (They are in a hurry.)
My heart is pumping adrenalin through all of my veins (Anxious because the author might die anything without knowing why.)
I run as fast as I can through the lead rain (The lead rain is being compared to a rain of bullets as bullets are made up of lead.)
The noise is tremendous, terror I can't define (The sound of gunshots are terrifying because there might be a chance of getting hit by the bullet.)
The only reason I survived that day was divine (The author was utterly lucky to survive as the examples mentioned above made surviving look like an impossible task.)
I kept pulling the trigger and reloading and pulling some more (He only did this action because it is the only thing he had to do as mentioned in line 14.)
You do what you have to do, with that I will say no more (He knew what he had to did and did exactly as told)
We fought from the valleys to the mountain peaks (The time fought was long and the distance was far)
From house to cave, to car to creek (The places they had to fight at were weird, which means that war is unexpected and nothing is impossible in war.)
Dirty and tired and hungry and scared (The moral of most soldiers were dropping due to all these factors, making scared one of the biggest factors in lowering the moral of soldiers.)
We slept with our boots on so we were always prepared (They were needed to be always prepared so that they would not lose out in a battle)
Those majestic mountains so steep, so high they kiss the skies (The mountains were so huge they could literally “kiss” the skies at the top of the mountains.)
The Hindu Kush has changed so many lives (The Hindu Kush mountain range that stretches between central Afghanistan and northern Pakistan.)
Up the mountains with heavy loads we trod (As mentioned in line 20, the mountains, being so steep, were still made a route for the soldiers to trek through, despite it being steep and the soldiers being tired.)
Who knew hell was so close to God (The close to death experiences made soldiers feel that hell was so close to God because of the mountains and terrain of the place where they are fighting at.)
Beauty and terror are a strong mixed drink (Experiencing both sides of life in a single life they lead, they feel that both beauty and terror made a strong mixed drink.)
So we drank it like drunkards and tried not to think (They did not want to think about their current stage of life, which is experiencing terror, so they felt that not thinking about terror was better.)
Good men and bad men, Mothers lost sons (At both sides of evil vs. good, mothers still loses their sons)
Everyone loses their innocence when they carry guns (Guns are the force of evil, making anyone lose their innocence because with guns they were given the ability to kill someone instantly.)
Washed in the blood, and baptized by fire (Washed in blood means that there were a lot of blood in the battlefield and baptized by fire meant soldier's first experience under fire in battle.)
I will never forget those who were called higher
They say blood is thicker than water, well lead is thicker than blood (No matter how thick blood is as compared to water, lead will still win blood and that would mean that lead could destroy blood, in other words kill.)
Brothers aren't born they're earned. In the poppy fields, the tears, and the mud (Brothers, friends also soldiers like oneself are not meant to be called brothers upon birth, but instead earned through hardships they have gone through and through help people give.
And when I get to heaven to Saint Peter I will tell (Saint Peter is one of a messenger to God and the author would like to tell him that he would like to spend his time in hell in line 33.)
Another Paratrooper reporting for duty sir, I spent my time in hell (Paratroopers are soldiers trained in parachuting and generally operate as part of an airborne force, and because of his guilt, he would like to spend his time in hell as he feel that he do not deserve his after-life in heaven and the use of the word “another” means that there more than one paratrooper who reported, which means that there were a lot of fatalities in war.)

Osama bin Laden's death

Was the decision to assassinate bin Laden rather than bring him to trail a justified one?

I think the decision to assassinate bin Laden is a justified one. One reason why it is a justified one is because in the 1990s bin Laden's al-Qaeda assisted jihadis financially and sometimes militarily in Algeria, Egypt and Afghanistan. In 1992 or 1993 bin Laden sent an emissary, Qari el-Said, with $40,000 to Algeria to aid the Islamists and urge war rather than negotiation with the government. Their advice was heeded but the war that followed killed 150,000–200,000 Algerians and ended with Islamist surrender to the government. That means that bin Laden killed a lot of people with assistance from other terrorist, which resulted in massive destruction and deaths of thousands. Thus, I can conclude that the decision to assassinate bin Laden rather than bring him to trail a justified one because he do not deserve forgiveness after the deaths he caused.

My journal entry, during the German war.

The day goes so slowly, and painfully. I am expected to fight a war, a horrible war, when I do not even have my daily necessity, water and ration was scarce, and I am already sick and tired of this life. The fear of taking the pain of a gunshot and the feelings I get when my companions are shot, dead bodies everywhere, some deformed and some into pieces from an explosion, I don’t know how my parents are doing too, I heard that Nazis will storm through houses, grabbing anything worth it and throwing people out from their houses. Civilians were given a chance to run and the Nazis will then take them as ‘living targets’ and shoot them. The thought of it was already horrible. May God bless me, and I hope I could survive this war, all my best friends already died. Nazi have already started having concentration camps, killing everyone they could until running out of ammo, in which they will then abandon the camp. I started to worry when my life would end, and would it lie in the hands of this war… I just want to survive and that would be the only thing I could do. Shellshock would have happened to me, since I was eighteen meters away from a mortar explosion but I stayed strong. I seriously hope the war would end… The sooner the better.

National Service

I do not agree that NS develops Singaporean boys into men. One example why I do not agree with that was because of a "Stomp" article regarding a young man,wearing the Singapore's army uniform,with a maid behind him, carrying his army bag. The picture also has a small quote saying, "Your maid, Our army". I feel that if NS develops boys into men,the young man would have carried his own army bag, and not his maid to carry for him. Thus NS does not develop Singaporean boys to men.

Exploring Space

I agree with the statement that the drive to explore space and our solar system is still an important human endeavor. On example would be because of global warming. Since global warming is happening on Earth and currently Earth is the only planet which has suitable living conditions for living things, human should still continue to explore space so that they can find another planet with suitable living conditions so that when Earth runs out of resources, or when the conditions are not suitable, we can go to the planet we found. Thus I feel that the drive to explore space and our solar system is still an important human endeavor since we might be able to find a planet with suitable living conditions for us when Earth runs out of resources, etc.

Social Media

Social media has made us less social. Do you agree?
i agree with the point that social media has made us less social. Social media like "Facebook" is one of the social media I often use since 2009, I had a lot of friends on Facebook and in primary school I had activities or chats with one of two of my best friends, named Joshua and Shilpa, but ever since I had social media, I spent less time chatting with them since troubles can be easily posted on "Facebook" and I would receive comments from other people instead of just talking to an individual about it. This makes us less social because we would not need to share troubles you have in real life though a friend by phone or face to face but instead just through social media, language used might not need to be formal and typing makes communication simpler and thus have its own pros. Therefore, making us less social in real life after we use social media oftenly.

General Elections

The poster on NSP shows teamwork better than the poster on the right. The poster on NSP has more details than poster about P.A.P because NSP has a short quote on top, which say “Your Voice, Your Choice”, with its logo on the right and a small box at the bottom saying “National Solidarity Party”, it is more organized than P.A.P, which has not much details, and not even a little information, neither is there a quote, only the name of the GRC, Marine Parade and its logo on the left. It also better display teamwork as it is not biased against the leader of the group, since everyone in the photo is almost of the same size, while in P.A.P’s photo, Goh Chock Tong’s photo is larger than the other member’s photo.