Today in class we considered notions of jus in bello-justice during wartime. We began by reviewing this idea in the Just War Theory packet. We then did some work in our notebooks, reflecting on how the stories we saw yesterday about Sgt. York, African-Americans in WWI, and Harry Truman, impact our thinking about WWI as a "just war". For each story we looked at different perspectives that each brought up and wrote responses that asked us to choose which one we were left with.
For Sgt. York: Was it the perspective of receiving medals OR loss of life OR his having to revisit his personal values.
For African American Soldiers: Was it W.E.B. Dubois' perspective of fighting for democracy abroad would lead to democracy at home OR the largest murder trial in history as a result of the Houston race riots.
For Harry Truman: Was it a "Great Adventure" or something other than that?
In each of the responses, it was important to consider what evidence led to your conclusion.
We then listened to a dramatic reading of Chapter 10 from the novel Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. We responded to the reading in our notebooks, considering our reactions to the excerpt, places that we agreed or disagreed with what Trumbo wrote as well as how it may have changed our opinion about when to go to war.
During the 2nd half of class, we completed this web activity. We turned it in at the end of class.
Here is the Metallica video for their song One that includes clips from Johnny Got His Gun.
