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Research Paper On If I Die In A Combat Zone

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Final Term Paper: If I Die in a Combat Zone…
“Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories.” -Tim O’Brien
The novel/autobiography, If I Die in a Combat Zone (1973), recounts author Tim O’Brien’s experiences with life, love, and personal dissention during possibly one of the most horrific military conflicts in history: the Vietnam War. In If I Die in a Combat Zone, Tim O’Brien gives a terrifying first-person perspective of his disdain and opposition toward the Vietnam War through his recollection of his internal struggle of living life in mid war Vietnam, the violence and loss of humanity that soldiers, and the life-altering, irreversible damage that the author/narrator endured during the Vietnam War.
Throughout his involvement/participation in the Vietnam war, O’Brien was having a hard time coping with the way he felt about why the war was even happening to …show more content…

Periodically, he would speak about his nights of watch, where his mind would run away with him. But, the scariest aspect of these seemingly outrageous pictures of death and ambush by Viets in the night is that they were not far from the reaches of reality. In the dead of night, O’Brien said that he couldn’t help but think that “we were fooling ourselves to think that we remained the hunters, in control of the war and our destinies” and that “all the enemy need do was steal up on our rear” (95). More than once, he mentions that his sense of courage was a sort of lost cause, and that hope for bravery was pointless in such a place so devoid of mercy. Even now, after all that he endured, Tim seems to have learned something from war: “it may not make a man of you, but it teaches you that manhood is not something to scoff”

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In the Lake of the Woods is a book about a man who comes back from the war in Vietnam and moves into a cabin in a town called In the Lake of the woods, but shortly thereafter his wife goes missing and he tries to find her while battling other things. Tim O’Brien is an American author from Austin, Minnesota. He was born on October 1st, 1946. He enrolled and studied at Malcalester College. He graduated from the in 1968 with a BA in political science and also a draft notice.

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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.

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Inside The Minds of Vietnam Tim O'Brien was drafted to Vietnam when he was only 18 years old, taken from his normal everyday college life and sent to a world no American had ever seen. Where in a place so deadly you're never sure when or how you’ll die. Tim O'Brien survived Vietnam, but at home he’s still battling what he thought he had left overseas. The memories still haunt him and many other men who made it home. His novel, The Things They Carried, describes Vietnam and all the things he encountered including the people he lost.

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Toward the end of 1900s, American literature saw a wave of fresh context about the Vietnam War. Tim O’Brien, one of the most popular authors of this new content, wrote a few of the popular Vietnam-themed novels. In the Lake of the Woods is among these novels about the Vietnam War, fictitiously depicting events that have changed people’s perspective on the history. Tim O’Brien expresses his rebuke in numerous ways, including how the war has changed modern warfare in that time. He also displays his views in an anti-war tone, speaking out against the war itself and the individual damage it has caused.

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In If I Die In A Combat Zone author Tim O'Brien states that the Vietnam war was a horrible place and time to be a part of by showing the gruesome violence of the war, the horrible living conditions of the war and lastly the amount of casualties that resulted from the war. O’Brien in the book reveles to the readers on several occasions how unorthodox the war in Vietnam was. This was already a pretty common consensus about the war but in the book it really drives the point home with countless scenes of violence and hostel imagery. A good example of this would be when the soldiers witness one of their comrades getting shot right in the buttox and the bullet comes out the other other end and out though the crotch area leaving puddles of blood

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This forewarns the reader that they could be reading something that is real or something that is completely made up. O’Brien is a masterful writer who has created an unique story about the experience of war through his style of writing.

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The Vietnam war was one of many crusades the United States carried throughout the 20th century, the Cold War era. The domino theory was one of many terms used in this stage of political hostility where if a nation falls under the communist regime, the rest of its neighboring countries would undergo the same events. Although the war gained immense publicity, it was also victorious in achieving the objection of many through its atrocities. In the book, If I Die in a Combat Zone, the author Tim O’Brien transmitted to the reader his personal experiences and beliefs during his recruitment in the Vietnam war by communicating the cruel, lethal circumstances servicemen encountered, exposing the intrusion on Vietnamese civilian lives and property, and

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In If I Die In A Combat Zone, author Tim O’Brien argued that the Vietnam War was immoral through the evil it placed on others lives, how poorly justified it was, and how the war desensitized the soldiers to death. Although Tim O’Brien came from a background of parents who fought in the Navy and were active in war, he was a protestor of the Vietnam war along with any war that had no good cause behind it. He was being drafted into a war that he didn’t want to take any part in. To O’Brien, the war was plain evil in every shape or form.

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It’s ironic that one would want to relive the horrors of war. Traditionally, a veteran would do anything in his power to forget everything he saw and experienced at war. However, for Tim O’Brien, it’s the exact opposite: Storytelling is the way that he copes, the way he keeps the dead alive, and the way he allows for outsiders to feel what he felt during the war. In The Things They Carried, O’Brien portrays the power of storytelling by using it to rehumanize the soldiers during the hardships of war.

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This quote epitomizes the trauma caused by war. O’Brien is trying to cope, mostly through writing these war stories but has yet to put it behind him. He feels guilt, grief, and responsibility, even making up possible scenarios about the life of the man he killed and the type of person he was. This

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In If I die in a combat zone, Box me up and ship me home, there is a very detailed description of the Vietnam war through the eyes of Tim O’Brien. His understanding of war due to his service in the Vietnam war, gives readers a better understanding of the sociopolitical environment during the 60s and 70s. The novel puts the reader in the position of a young American man being drafted and sent to Vietnam. Unlike other authors, Tim O’Brien is able to use his first hand knowledge of being a soldier and incredible vernacular to give an accurate depiction of war.

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If I Die in a Combat Zone The Vietnam War affected the United States population by causing most troops to experience mental health disorders, alcoholism, drug addiction, and many more struggles that left Americans feeling empty after the war. The United States feared that communism was going to spread to South Vietnam. They feared that this spread of communism would lead to a domino effect, which would start with one nation becoming destabilized due to communism, and it leading onto other countries making a repeating effect globally. In If I Die in a Combat Zone O’Brien is the narrator, author and protagonist that takes place in the novel.

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Tim O’Brien never lies. While we realise at the end of the book that Kiowa, Mitchell Sanders and Rat Kiley are all fictional characters, O’Brien is actually trying to tell us that there is a lot more truth hidden in these imagined characters than we think. This suggests that the experiences he went through were so traumatic, the only way to describe it was through the projection of fictional characters. O’Brien explores the relationship between war experiences and storytelling by blurring the lines between truth and fiction. While storytelling can change and shape a reader’s opinions and perspective, it might also be the closest in helping O’Brien cope with the complexity of war experiences, where the concepts like moral and immorality are being distorted.

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It was not Tim’s sense of nationalist loyalties that caved him; rather, it was helplessness and his reputation that was at risk. Tim O’Brien longed to be that “secret hero” or “Lone Ranger” in order to impress those around him. However, he ends up learning that courage does not come in finite quantities. He finds himself resenting authority, “If you support a war, if you think it’s worth the price, that’s fine, but you have to put your own precious fluids on the line”. No matter how much he may find the law cruel and inhuman, he has is too prideful and decides to comply with the rules.

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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.

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