am i the only member who's largely unaffected by these videos?? also: try Takahata's Grave Of The Fireflies http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095327/
"Heaven" in this version by Dutch singer Do is quite all right but the child's voice-acting is terrible. I highly doubt she's 'real'. In any case her incessant and irrelevant comments on the death of a volunteer strike me as nothing more than annoying. Again, the soldiers fighting and dying in Iraq deserve much more than this.
Maybe her acting is terrible because she isn't acting? Even if not I fail to understand the hostile reaction by some here. No child is ever going to understand what a war is about or why her father has to leave her. I see this video as anti-war withourt being anti-military or anti-US. The simple truth is that, seen through the eyes of a child, all war whether just or unjust, foolish or wise is terrible which is a view I happen to share. In any case if one doesn't like this kind of thing it is easy to ignore it but rather mean-spirited to attack the little girl or the pople who are moved by it.
What I mean is that the way she says her lines make it clear that she is reading them from a piece of paper without feeling the emotions, in other words that she's not coming across as believable. I don't think this is disrespectful because I don't believe this girl has lost her father in this war. However if it turns out to be real, it's only one more reason to argue that this particular video fails to serve its purpose. Which, for the record, seems pretty obviously to be anti-war, of the "bring our soldiers home before they get killed and leave us behind with nothing but our grief" variety. That is an interesting misconception. Male children think all forms of war are awesome until they learn to understand exactly what pain, loss and mortality means. Therefore, until they do, they far from reject war. Why do you think male children are always playing war with each other? From plastic swords to tin soldiers to video games, ways to simulate war are always the most popular toys.
Not a misconception at all. The misconception is confusing war with the childish fantasy of war that young boys have. Fantasy and reality are different things.
But if they believe war to be what they believe it to be, they would not judge it as harshly as you say they would. Which is my point; they don't.
My statement was that "war seen through the eyes of a child..is terrible" not a misconception of war that comes from having no real concept of war such as you describe. Those children who have experienced war no long harbor those fantasies and female children do not seem to have those fantasies of the glory of war as male children do. Talk to a young girl (old enough to grasp the concept) about war and what happens in war and they will think it is sad and terrible. Perhaps their ability to empathize develops sooner but more likely IMO the lack of testosterone driven competition impulses never creates the fantasy of glorious combat that young boys seem to have. I don't think females are in any way superior to males in this respect it is just that they develop differently. These differences are most likely a result of different evolutionary strategies IMO.
I do not claim to post the ultimative tribute. What can I do more in this forum , then posting such videos, it´s quite hard to build a memorial in here I actually think some users are callous. ..or it´s caused by the fact that i´m young and see things with different eyes. Regards, Che.
Just digging up an old topic because something I heard recently triggered a memory of it. My point does not exactly go against what either of you are saying, but... If children were so easily put off war by exposure to its results, then why do children make such good soldiers? There are an estimated 200 000 child soldiers 'in service' at the moment, mostly in Africa and South America. Generally they are prized because they are relatively cheap, they can be indoctrinated with ease, they tend to be quite callous towards other people and have an enhanced sense of their own immortality. In several African nations children are routinely kidnapped, indoctrinated, and set loose - by both Governments and Rebels. Would they bother if the children would simply stop fighting whenever they say somebody get shot?
