Slaughterhouse-Five: Convenience

"Rumfoord was thinking in a military manner: that an inconvenient person, one whose death he wished for very much, for practical reasons, was suffering from a repulsive disease."  (p. 192)

Convenience.  One word that makes all Americans jump for joy.  In our society, we have endless amounts of convenience stores - for example, Walgreens, CVS, Target, McDonalds, Chick-fil-a, Marathon, etc, etc.  The United States encourages laziness and apathy within society.  We no longer have to work for what we need.   

In Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut not only criticizes the war, but the American mindset as well.  Some Americans are so self-centered that they want others to die in order for more convenience in their own lives.  War encourages this American mindset - murder as a convenience.  During war, the number one goal is to defeat the enemy.  This comes at the cost of millions of lives.  The more people murdered, the more successful the war.  Killing is convenient during war because it causes war to end faster.  But this convenience comes at a price - a price that no one thinks about during war - a loss of family.