He entered the war because he thought he could be a hero, due to the large amounts of propaganda, and the fact that he thought it was going to be a quick war. He was wrong. Philip Caputo illustrates the unique experience of war. The author shows what the soldiers go through physically and mentally by evolving them as a person, while shaping their morals and values of life. Caputo joined the Marines in 1960, because he was tired of the dullness that Westchester Illinois brought to him.
Men went through so many tasks during the Vietnam War physically and mentally. The beginning chapters focus on training for war and being prepared for the worst. For example, when there is a sergeant in a room with the marines. The sergeant walks to the chalk board and writes “AMBUSHES ARE MURDER AND MURDER IS FUN” (36-37). The
For the most part, everyone knows that war is a very real and terrifying, especially for someone who is involved. Author Tim O’Brien, being a veteran of the Vietnam War himself, knows from a personal perspective the
This chapter “The Ghost Soldiers”, showed us how Tim O’Brien and the other soldiers were dealing with the war both physically and psychologically. It also shows us how the Tim O'Brien behaved and felt when he was shot, wounded and had a bacteria infection on his butt and how the war changed the way he thought, and viewed the other soldiers around him. This chapter also contain a lot of psychological lens. From the way Tim O’Brien felt when he was shot and separated from his unit to a new unit to when he wanted revenge on Bobby Jorgenson for almost “killing” him.
The book Dispatches paints a vivid image of Michael Herr’s time in Vietnam. Herr reports about the day-to-day events of a soldier’s life in Vietnam with clarity in one of the unearthly events of time. The book focuses on two major battles: the Battle for Hue during the Tet Offensive and the Battle of Keh Sanh. The chaos and intensity of the war and surreal dementia of life in a combat zone are revealed. Herr tells Marines’ stories, some peculiar and other sentimental with a sense of respect and appreciation for what the young men do in a foreign country that is full of danger.
In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, the author retells the chilling, and oftentimes gruesome, experiences of the Vietnam war. He utilizes many anecdotes and other rhetorical devices in his stories to paint the image of what war is really like to people who have never experienced it. In the short stories “Spin,” “The Man I Killed,” and “ ,” O’Brien gives reader the perfect understanding of the Vietnam by placing them directly into the war itself. In “Spin,” O’Brien expresses the general theme of war being boring and unpredictable, as well as the soldiers being young and unpredictable.
When faced with war soldiers change, for better or for worse. Modern culture celebrates the glory of patriotic sacrifice. However, this celebration often leaves out the gritty details and trauma of violence behind war and the way it affects people. Homer’s The Odyssey and William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives clearly discuss these details. Both debate the long-awaited return of warriors that went off to fight a war and the way the experience changes the protagonists.
Many historians, researchers, politicians, and scholars have considered reconstruction as turning point for the ratification of equality laws that would eliminate racial segregation for equally rights. However, a close follow-up of the controversial developments that occurred immediately after the end of the Civil War in 1865 indicates dissimilarity. The reconstruction era might have made a history of enabling African Americans to vote and become state legislatures, but some major political personnel consider Reconstruction as a failure, which led to non-ending political controversies, murder, and assaults indicating general failure. Robert Smalls and Wade Hampton are some of the major political people who participated in the continuity of the Reconstruction era and their actions and words prove its failure, as explored in this study. However, their consideration of black freedom contrast because Smalls demonstrates the harmful actions of
The Disconnected Soldiers In “The Things They Carried,” written by Tim O’Brien, he creates images in the audience 's mind about what veterans truly experience before, during, and after the Vietnam war. Soldiers always have the strange feeling of disconnection but O’Brien brings this to the attention of people throughout his book. On the surface, the book appears to be a simple war novel, but beneath the surface it opens up into all of the struggles that war veterans face such as the disconnection from society. Disconnection occurs as a main theme in the novel and he presents this through multiple stories from different characters.
Hidden somewhere within the blurred lines of fiction and reality, lies a great war story trapped in the mind of a veteran. On a day to day basis, most are not willing to murder someone, but in the Vietnam War, America’s youth population was forced to after being pulled in by the draft. Author Tim O’Brien expertly blends the lines between fiction, reality, and their effects on psychological viewpoints in the series of short stories embedded within his novel, The Things They Carried. He forces the reader to rethink the purpose of storytelling and breaks down not only what it means to be human, but how mortality and experience influence the way we see our world. In general, he attempts to question why we choose to tell the stories in the way
This is just one of many traumatic events that replay in soldiers’ minds. The witnessed horrors of war lead to perpetual impacts on a person. Within The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, he reveals the untold horrors that encompass war which leave lasting impacts, through in-depth descriptions of events, the tainting of morals, and post-war reality. Tim O’Brien uses an in-depth description of events to reveal the horrors of
In Phil Klay’s Redeployment, the war in Iraq is described as an intense masculine experience. Through the pages, the presence of women is marginal, if there is any woman in the short stories, and the reader enters in a realm of men and, more important, of what it means to be a real man. The assumption of war as a complete masculine experience might seem pretty obvious; however, Phil Klay is able to offer a crude and clear depiction of it. The author tells twelve different short stories of men who have only one thing in common: the experience of the Iraq War. But this is not simply a book about the war, but also about the consequences that this terrible experience has on the soldiers.
He fought a war in Vietnam that he knew nothing about, all he knew was that, “Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons” (38). He realized that he put his life on the line for a war that is surrounded in controversy and questions. Through reading The Things They Carried, it was easy to feel connected to the characters; to feel their sorrow, confusion, and pain. O’Briens ability to make his readers feel as though they are actually there in the war zones with him is a unique ability that not every author possess.
The True Weight of War “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, brings to light the psychological impact of what soldiers go through during times of war. We learn that the effects of traumatic events weigh heavier on the minds of men than all of the provisions and equipment they shouldered. Wartime truly tests the human body and and mind, to the point where some men return home completely destroyed. Some soldiers have been driven to the point of mentally altering reality in order to survive day to day. An indefinite number of men became numb to the deaths of their comrades, and yet secretly desired to die and bring a conclusion to their misery.
I turned my attention to the chapter titled “In Vietnam They Had Whores”. In the beginning of the chapter, we see a conversation between an unnamed 19 year old soon to be deployed soldier, and his father, a former Vietnam veteran. Although the story doesn’t have much substance, I believe it is a great example because of how I related to it. As a military child myself, a lot of the stories conveyed to me through my father often have no meaning to me. They’re filled with military abbreviations and insignificant events, according to me of course.