"First Engagement" & "The Range"

“First Engagement” underscores the demoralizing and abhorrent consequences of fighting a guerrilla war. In World War II, the War of Independence, and most historic military engagements, the combatants have been members of a standing army or militia, uniformed, identifiable, somewhat trained. As was the case in the Persian Gulf Wars, however the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been fought in the streets of major cities, in government quarters, and in the homes of ordinary citizens. To the end of the poem, Martin describes the scene following the gunfire. Our narrator loses his footing and falls, which would be embarrassing especially for a soldier since he’s holding a firearm and his comrades are probably staring at him saying “Really?” But a soldier’s embarrassment goes much farther, much deeper, and evolves into pure shame when a citizen falls out of the truck bleeding to death, his son shot in the arm, the only vehicle is family probably has is destroyed, and all because he was dragging rebar behind his van to fix his home. 

There is no justification, no consolation for the soldiers responsible. And it’s not their fault. They’re trained to eliminate targets before they are themselves eliminated. Although they don’t have to suffer trench foot, or halt a Semitic genocide, they have to live with the fact that they don’t know who they’re fighting. Conventional rules of engagement are gone, the Geneva Convention is suspended, your allies are as confused as you are, your superiors have no clear definition of victory, and your countrymen don’t support you. I can’t quite decide which is worse. Personally, I would rather have fought WWII.

“The Range” is interesting because we see the author’s disassociation with what he’s doing. The cut and dry tone of the poem gives an impression that our soldier is turning into a machine more or less, especially toward the end where he says “I never speak, but only fire, study the range for the next one- hold my breath, tap the trigger, take them down, one by one like it was all the world needed done.” That very last sentence left me with the obvious question, what else does our author think the world need’s to be done? Perhaps it was the question he thought he should have asked himself while at training, maybe it’s the question we’re supposed to ask. Or maybe I’m just reading too much into it or just missing the mark completely.