"Guns"

     "Guns" (360-361) by W.D. Erhart is a powerful poem that uses rhetorical questions and vivid imagery to make a point that war is cruel and (according to the poet) wrong. In the poem, a young girl is asking her father questions about his experience in war. The father answers her question with an appropriate response, but this initial question spurs a plethora of rhetorical questions posed to the reader under the guise of the father's thoughts. The first question is, "How do you tell a four-year-old what steel can do to flesh?" This question spurs unpleasant reflection of the incredibly harsh reality of what steel actually can do to a person. Common knowledge is that steel can injure. Steel can maim. Steel can kill. Being forced to contemplate the question of how one could possibly disclose this awful truth to an innocent child highlights the horror of the weaponry and, more importantly, brutality of war. The contrast between the innocent little girl's pure mind and the hardened former soldier's burdened one further emphasizes Erhart's overall reflection of the atrocity of war. 
      The next rhetorical question asked proves that Erhart is against war reading, "How do you explain a world where men kill other men and call it love of country?" Even more specifically the choice of word, "call" is significant, making diction another beneficial literary device used in the poem. "Call" implies that men use "love of country" as an excuse to make their killings acceptable; that the killings are really murders as opposed to the acts of heroes.
      Imagery is portrayed through the following, "He spins across the marketplace all shattered chest, all eyes and arms." The harsh scene of a ten-year-old boy flying, bloody and broken, across a marketplace is moving. Again, Erhart confronts the reader with the severe, distressing aspects of combat in the attempt to accentuate the negativities of war. This boy acts as a symbol of war and brutality especially in the line, "The boy spins across the years till he lands in a heap in another war in another place where yet another generation is rudely about to discover what their fathers never told them." This is commenting on the repetition of war and how even though the horrific nature of war is well-known, war continues to occur again and again and again.
      My personal reflection of this poem is that it is very well-written and makes an excellent point. The poem forced me to consider my personal opinion. I found it really made me think about war and left me a little torn. Obviously, it is very upsetting that war has happened so many times and will probably continue to take place in the future. I understand this is a despairing reality, but I also have immense respect and appreciation for the soldiers brave enough to fight for the safety and security of our country. I lean more towards the side of it's a necessary evil. I wish it could be avoided, but that it not always possible.