Purple Heart Response

War is nothing to joke around about because the events, people, and horrors are all real and often can not be escaped even after the war is over. American citizens are simply spectators of the war and truly do not understand what it means to be in war. Americans' see war as a couple of tragic events where innocent soldiers are killed, and then hear the final outcome of the situation and base their understandings of war of those few events. When actually war is indescribable because there are so many events that take place on a daily basis that can not even be taken. Soldiers learn new cooping mechanisms in order to deal with the casualties they have seen, because war is some heavy stuff, that must be managed well otherwise things one may lose control. While roaming the streets, one does not know who and what it out there, which increases stress and anxiety putting a soldier in an unstable state and changes ones actions and decisions, which may be the difference between life and death. Matt stated, '"When you point your gun at someone and pull the trigger,' he said, 'shit happens. It's not a surprise. It's not pretty, but it's not something I necessarily want to talk about."' The events that one experiences changes the way he or she may view a certain situations, and depending on the severity of the crime or action one may put up a wall and keep their emotions to themselves. When experiencing horrific actions ones emotions are going to be extremely painful, and one may not want to talk about it because they do not want to revisit those emotions again. It is important for soldiers to express their emotions rather than letting them build up inside because that will only increase stress and other internal pain. Private Kane told Matt that he should talk his experiences, because the physical wounds will heal but ones mental state will not cure itself until one expresses what they have been through.  The events that one experiences will not go away, but one must learn how to deal with those events and understand what they have done, and why they did it because otherwise those physiological emotions will eat a soldier from the inside out.