Often, when war comes to your mind, you see images of bloody soldiers vanquishing the enemy. You think war is like those video games that try to portray war as a game. If you die, you can come back to life at the last checkpoint. But that is not how it is. Not by a long shot.

Teens think that war is all about glory; they think it is like a game that can be replayed whenever you want to. Some teens that have actually heard of or read about the atrocities of war realize that war is not all fun and games. They find that war is not as cool as they thought.

Some adults think as teens, but most of them have had relatives that have been in past wars and survived to tell the tale or are veterans themselves. They know or have experienced the horrors of war and they find that war is much different than the way it is portrayed in media.

This is an excerpt from an account of an attack on a US ship by the Japanese in WW2.

At 2207 hours, the LST 808's engine room was hit by a torpedo from a low flying plane. The enormous concussion opened a five-foot hole in the hull, instantly killing the five men in the engine room and filling the air with the smell of sulfur.

Most of the crew was off the ship by 0300, and the salvage officers began the task of removing everything valuable or secret. A security detail of five was on the ship when, at 1837 hours on May 20, a kamikaze from the 50th Shinbu Squadron at Chiran Air Base flew his Hayabusa fighter plane into the forward superstructure and crashed all the way down to the tank deck. None of the men on board the ship were badly hurt.

Just another day in paradise. The final toll was 17 dead and 11 wounded.

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Just in this short excerpt, the horrors of war were described well. Just reading about  the smell of sulfur as the ship was hit and the men who got blown to pieces gave me chills. Now you see that war is like a game to some people, but to others who have experienced it, war is hell.