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An Analysis Of Yusef Komunyaka's Poem 'Facing It'

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The Dark side of War What is it felt like to be a veteran who has suffered from the trauma of war that leaves multiple scars? As a Vietnam War veteran, Yusef Komunyaka in his short poem “Facing It” narrates his experience along with his emotional struggle as he visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Phil Klay, who is also a veteran served in Iraq, in his short story “Redeployment”, attempted to show how it feels like in a war zone and what happened to the soldiers who returned. These stories gives a peek into one of the most difficult phases a person can face in a life time. The sequencing of the collection reflects the disorder of a soldier’s life. Some remain long after the fact, tracing the lives damaged or lost in the months after coming …show more content…

For Yusef, the memorial is more than a stone, but something he identifies with on a deeper level. It is this deeper meaning that inspires his emotional response: "I said I wouldn't/dammit: No tears. /I'm stone. I'm flesh” (line 3-5). This memorial, for Yusef, does not arouse in him new emotions but old existing ones; ones which he fights to contain with no success, although he came to the memorial with the knowledge that he would find it a highly emotional experience (Facing It). On the other hand Sgt. Price struggles to internalize his emotions, telling himself not to think of how his friend died at the war and other horrors, rather he wants to think of his wife which later made him guilty, he realize that he is a living human being who shares the darkness and horror of the war …show more content…

In Redeployment, back home, Sgt. Price can't let go of his war experiences or the tense battle-readiness that his memories provoke. Entering a crowded shopping mall strikes him helplessly to what he calls alert-level orange: "Here's what orange is. You don't see or hear like you used to. Your brain chemistry changes. You take in every piece of the environment, everything" (127-128). He found it difficult to "get back down to white”. He notices there are people walking around who have live their whole lives and die at white, people who have never experience orange state (Redeployment). Whereas, when we see Yusef the names upon the memorial represent experiences that Yusef carries within himself and that impact him in ways that have changed him forever. This is why it seems that Yusef finds it hard to realize that other people should not visibly carry the impact of the war with them also, wherever they go. Yusef writes: "Names shimmer on a woman's blouse/but when she walks away/the names stay on the wall"(lines 19-21). Yusef seems to find it hard to understand that a woman can approach the memorial and then walk away and take nothing with her, leaving it all exactly as it was before. It appears no effect upon the other, the names briefly shimmers upon the woman's blouse and then both the woman's blouse and the memorial remain separate and intact (Facing

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Yusef Komunyakaa, the author of “Facing It,” is a Vietnam Veteran who appears to write as a means to express his grief, pain, and postwar experiences. Being a Veteran myself and having been to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. several times, I empathize with Komunyakaa. The first thing I noticed upon walking down the path to the monument was how quiet and peaceful it was, yet the sorrow and pain was deeply rooted. I located the names of family, friends, and the MIA Marine’s name “CAPT RICHARD R. KANE” on my MIA/POW bracelet. This experience sent chills throughout my body and was emotionally overwhelming.

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“Ten Kliks South” v. Tina M. Beller “Ten Kliks South” by Phil Klay and Tina M. Beller’s e-mail found in The New Yorker both contain universal themes that clearly represent the lives and emotions of soldiers who are stationed overseas. For one, “Ten Kliks South” is a personal account of a narrator’s first experiences of death under the circumstances of war. Likewise, Beller’s e-mail is also a first-person report on a traumatic rocket bombing in Baghdad. Both of these pieces illustrate a common portrait, of which there are American soldiers in a foreign and unknown land, a day of violence, and the progression of that such violence into intensive contemplation on the soldier’s respective situations.

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Soldiers typically lacked sympathy for what they went through from society ignoring the trauma they brought back from the Vietnam War. The following quote from the article presents the thought process of most soldiers to us: “By forgetting, he said he could prove that he was strong and could master his anxieties… by remembering, he felt he was admitting that he was weak and no longer in control” (Penk and Robinowitz 3). The previous quote shows how the soldiers felt that forgetting made them appear strong rather than letting their emotions weaken them, and this is why we see a soldier’s inner conflict as they force themselves to remember in the poem. In this quote from the poem the soldier has come to the monument for remembering those who passed in the war and as he looks at those names his first thought is: “No tears.

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Yusef's poem, "Facing It" is an accurate reflection of what happens in the face of the world due to war and turmoil. The affected party is always on the eve of building unforgettable memories from life experiences. Controlling such experiences proves difficult since the haunted, lives under the burden of regret for a longer period if not a lifetime depression. For example, when one loss the people who have been close to him due to war or turmoil, he will always think of this and may be a permanent mark in one's life. Humanity is a take that is expressed in this poem.

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Redeployment is Phil Klay’s wartime fiction short story collection. The text involves several short experiences and perspectives of the men in combat in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The author uses the experiences of the soldiers to convey their feelings, thoughts, tone and wishes to the civilians and soldiers at home and abroad. The author applies the first person narration to offer the stories a personal touch and capture the perspectives of their soldiers. Although the stories are fictional, they reflect the realities of redeployment, which might have happened to someone at some point or place.

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When Lyman was looking at the picture it dawned on him, unlike the car, Henry cannot be repaired. The dark truth behind the mental image of Henry’s brother shows that his soul did not return back from Vietnam. Lyman’s avoidance of the photograph shows the murkiness behind the photograph. His detail of the photograph creates a mental image of Henry’s suffering and distance from reality he could never overcome. He hides this photograph in his closet because he would never get to understand what his brother went through while being imprisoned.

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In Phil Klay’s Redeployment, the war in Iraq is described as an intense masculine experience. Through the pages, the presence of women is marginal, if there is any woman in the short stories, and the reader enters in a realm of men and, more important, of what it means to be a real man. The assumption of war as a complete masculine experience might seem pretty obvious; however, Phil Klay is able to offer a crude and clear depiction of it. The author tells twelve different short stories of men who have only one thing in common: the experience of the Iraq War. But this is not simply a book about the war, but also about the consequences that this terrible experience has on the soldiers.

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