Entry 5: Military Media

The portrayal of soldiers, war, and the military has always been distorted by the media. Be it the time of cannons and sabres, bolt-actions and trenches, or APCs and air strikes, somehow the media has skewed our views of "national defense." In 1854 war was viewed with glory, in 1920 war was cast in shadow. In this response I will consider the poem "Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

In 1854, Tennyson wrote his poem "Charge of the light Brigade," immediately after reading an account of the battle of balaclava in The Times. In his poem he praises the Light Brigade, shown in the last stanza,

"When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

All the world wondered.

Honor the charge they made,

Honor the Light Brigade,

Noble six hundred."

Despite the fact that the soldiers had known that an officer had made a mistake, since charging the guns was obviously a suicide charge, the Light Brigade charged anyways, true to their orders. This is represented in stanza two,

"...Someone had blunder'd:

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred."

What had happened was Captain Louis Edward Nolan was one in a chain of messengers sent to carry orders from Army Commander Lord Raglan. The message read "Lord Raglan wishes the Cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, follow the enemy, and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns. Troop Horse Artillery may accompany. French Cavalry is on your left. Immediate." In this Lord Raglan had meant the cavalry to rout the Russians attempting to evacuate valuable guns from a fortification, however Captain Nolan interpreted "guns" as an artillery line straight ahead of them. Even though they charged straight into a situation from which they knew very well to be suicide, on misread orders, they did so regardless. I think this was brave and that is why Tennyson praised these soldiers; because despite the horrors of war they had the courage to fight on. I can connect this to my own realization of the defintion of courage in Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, where Atticus states "It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do." These soldiers knew they were "licked," but they began anyway and saw it through no matter what. This is why Tennyson praised them, and why I think they were deserving of praise.

Overall I think that the times back then were very different. Though war was still horrible and tragic, war was seen by the public as honourable, courageous and brave. I also think that it's true, wars were more honourable back then, there was nothing like the atrocities of poisonous gas in WWI, the holocaust in WWII, or "agent orange" in the Vietnam War. Soldiers even wore more colourful and dress-type uniforms back then. However, war is still death, no matter what the time period or the circumstances.