War Talk
Since mankind began to band together into separate groups, the world would be changed forever. This unification has resulted in the formation of most of humanities ‘civilization’, everything from cultures to war. A particularly strong sense of unity is needed for an effective war, as a disconnected army is just a shuffled group of uncomfortable and upset people. All people need a reason, or motive, for action as noting is done that’s solely superfluous. Since battles began, their leaders have scoured all over for the most effective means to call their armies to action. Battles, like movies, have intrigued man as he innately likes competition and being right. Gettysburg, Patton and Bravehart are all movies which depict a leader attempting to rally his troops. Each one chooses his own distinctive style to accomplish this, but I personally found Gettysburg’s speech most personally effective.
The 1993 film Gettysburg is a civil war reenactment film, during which Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain addresses some soldiers from Maine on why they should continue fighting. He manages to consign the troops as a whole, but through his words, each man as an individual. He calmly approaches their morals and encourages followers of his cause without obligating them to action. By giving them a belief and reason for their cause he places value in human lives; human equality; basic innate humanities experienced by all. By incorporating that which we all share he could easily concentrate on the Union’s ultimate goal, freedom for all. “We are an army to set other men free…We fight because we have values…What we’re fighting for, in the end, we’re fighting for each other.” These soldiers would then be mobilizing for a true cause they agreed on, instead of how most previous wars had gone, being fought for some trite, venal, materialistic, power-hungry reason created by king, or equivalent, which doesn’t represent their people. He praised them while...