"Coming Home"

The writing “Coming Home” found in the book “The Prentice Hall Guide for College Writers” on page 259 describes a sad war story of one man who became a prisoner of war for six years. This man, named Robert Stirm, was finally reunited with his family after spending six years in a North Vietnamese prison camp. The article discusses a photo taken by a nearby journalist and how the photo captures the awesome moment when this man and his family were reunited. However, toward the end of the writing it is stated that this man and his wife ended up getting a divorce a year later. It makes me wonder if the war was a main cause for this divorce. Since the wife could not see her husband for such a long time their relationship grew farther apart and caused a divorce. War can have a negative effect on families.

The concept of war never really made sense to me. Countries fight with each other in order to get on peaceful terms with one another. This is at least the way most countries make it appear. I think the reason for war is selfish. One country wants to be better than the other so they try to prove that by trying to kill more of the opposing country. When government leaders declare war, I wonder if they think about families of the soldiers and how they might be affected. It is important for them to be concerned about the country as a whole, but families and citizens are what make up a country. If war is destroying and tearing apart families, is that bettering the country? In a lot of cases war may not affect a family as bad as it did the Stirn family, but it still makes it hard for families to grow together if one member is gone at war for years. I understand that countries have to defend themselves and sometimes war is the only option. When a country just decides to go to war for no good reason, it is selfish, ignorant, and it tears apart families.