Lions For Lambs

Reflection Paper - Lions for Lambs

The movie 'Lions for Lambs' had three separate and inter-related situations and scenarios going through the duration of the movie. The movie portrayed the values of a career politician Senator Jasper Irving with his eyes set on the White House and someday becoming president and the conflicting values of a seasoned journalist Janine Roth, who had helped build up the politician and was now understanding the implications of the actions of this politician on the country and especially the troops at war, with a clear understanding of the ramifications of the decisions being made by this senator from previous wars and errors the country was starting to repeat in the Iraq war.

The next scene, scenario and characters were of a college history professor, Dr. Stephen Malley and one of his students Todd Hayes, with the professor trying to find out how a very brilliant student is suddenly disinterested in the class and had stopped participating in class discussions. The conversation between the two centered on commitment, service, diligence and responsibility with many philosophical and educational phrases used by the professor to spur the student into becoming more dedicated to the work in class and explaining the importance of understanding that knowledge does not stop in class but should be used to impact the country and the world at large.

This conversation with Professor Malley led to the discussion about two of the professors previous students: an African-American, Arian Finch and a Latino, Ernest Rodriguez. Two students who had come from abject poverty but absorbed the professors lessons on responsibility and impacting the society, using this as motivation to join the Army and directly impact the war effort against Terror. This the professor explained was against his own convictions about the war effort pointing out that he was drafted to the Vietnam war and was very much against that war effort when