What Every Soldier Should Know

The first line in “What Every Soldier Should Know” is interesting because it makes an important point, of how different and ideal the Western world is compared to say the Middle East. Hearing a gunfire would be for a wedding or for you in the Middle East, meaning no matter what as the American you are the target, the good guy everyone is out to get. The poem mentions normal everyday Arabic sayings, and then goes into “graffiti sprayed onto the overpasses, I will kell you, American.” The main point is that the previously mentioned graffiti written statement is almost implemented into the language as if anti-American notions are now a part of the culture, which is why Turner had decided to mention the normal every day Arabic sayings with the graffiti on the overpasses detail. This poem can also be compared with the Vietnam War and some Anti-American notions along with the American presence that seems to be made permanent in both these foreign cultures, meaning the culture of Iraq and Vietnam. “There are bombs under the overpasses, in trashpiles, in bricks, in cars” may be a similar description to how the war front in Vietnam during the war had been meaning booby traps would be invisible in the thick Vietnamese jungles, similar to how these bombs are  concealed in the Iraq War. The poem itself is also interesting in its vivid descriptions of how the enemy may celebrate the enemy American’s death, while ironically the Western image and influence is being engraved in their culture as well as memory. This seems to be a reoccurring theme with American Wars, of the unwanted yet wanted American presence, this heroic theme of the American saving the citizen of these lands it is dwelling in, away from its leader or dictator, or better known as Terrorists and the Communist Party.