Hugh Martin's Stick Soldiers and the Four-Letter Word

War has obviously changed over the years. War has changed along with society and technology and politics. Hugh Martin's writing is different from that of the writers we've previously read from because his experience is much different from theirs. In Martin's time in the army, there is now rigorous basic training designed from the ground up to prepare people for war; dying is part of the training. The internet and compact computer technology let anyone google the many ways that soldiers have died in the middle east--it lets soldiers watch porn, even. All of this information is available to anyone, and yet there is still a disconnect between soldiers and civilians back home. Society has become convinced that there simply is no understanding war without being in it. Without the draft, there is no motivation to be interested and knowledgeable about the war. So politicians let it go on, and sometimes even the soldiers don't know what they're fighting for other than "The Global War on Terrorism."  Another thing that has changed is the type of war that is being fought. War has gone from standing in place shooting at each other, to trench warfare, to jungles and mines, and now-- urban sprawl, enemies that blend in with civilians, and suicide bombers. And this unclear knowledge of the enemy, this idea that soldiers and civilians are having a similar traumatic experience is what shows through in Martin's writing. Soldiers may still be unable to relate to the people back home (or rather, the people back home still won't try to understand what soldiers experience), but now there is this bond of shared experience between American soldiers and civilians in the middle east. Because nobody knows who the suicide bomber is going to be or when they're going to come, and everyone is just as horrified as the next person.