"Stick Soldiers" and "Responding to an Explosion in Qarah Tappah"

Hugh Martin’s and Tim O Brien’s style of writing is very similar to each other. They both portray the brutal events of war in a very ordinary way. It feels like that is their usual life and what they see everyday and thus the killings, the bloodsheds, and the explosions became so ineffective to them. I read the poems, “Responding to an Explosion inn Qarah Tappah,” and “Stick Soldiers.”

In “Responding to an Explosion in Qarah Tappa,” It is amazing to me that how a father can be the ultimate reason for his own son’s death. The innocence of the eleven-year-old boy of not knowing while he was touching the IEDs that his father built in a ark corner of the family courtyard, and how the little boy touched it in a way and a whole round exploded.  There was only sorrow that Martin describes he saw while the girls were softly sobbing and as if they were trying that for the first time. He also states how the father doesn’t even say a word and does the thing that was necessary for him to do. I also loved the imagery that he portrays in this poem, especially the oral imagery where he states, “ When the father comes home, they blindfold him, zip-tie his hands behind his back, take him away. We drive through the empty hills, the ground so hard, so stale, it crunches our tires as if made of sun-dried bones. I like how he uses a metaphorical perspective to describe his route through the hills and the death of that little boy was so normal to each and every one of them.

In “Stick Soldiers,” Martin portrays the children showing gratitude towards the American troops. The poem doesn’t end this poem in a positive manner,  as the children from Jalula draws pictures and instead of portraying the theme of good luck, the act of violence is inserted into those vivid images. It is very overwhelming to see and feel this kind of sentimental mood while reading this poem and seeing how children gets affected so much and nothing is really done about it. This poem actually portrays a very true meaning of war instead of stating it as an anti-war poem like O’brien does with his stories.