The Battle Of Ong Thanh Analysis

In comparison, The Things They Carried and The Battle of Ong Thanh video had several alike features such as youthfulness, unfamiliar surroundings, and the fear of dying. For example, in the video soldiers would talk about their experience and feeling towards it. As said in The Things They Carried, “In June of 1968, a month after graduation from Macalester College, I was drafted to fight a war I hated. I was twenty-one years old” (38). These men were scared, untrained, and no longer hopeful for the future. They didn’t know what to expect from fighting in the war, other than death. As said by Tim O’Brien, “[I felt] sorry for myself, thinking about the war and the pig factory and how my life seemed to be collapsing toward slaughter. I felt paralyzed” (41). Most of these men were trapped in a war they had not intention in fighting in, one that could alter their future.

"When a man died, there had to be blame. Jimmy Cross understood this. You could blame the war… A moment of carelessness or bad judgment or plain stupidity carried consequences that lasted forever" (115). In both the novel and the video, it was shown that the soldiers would quickly take blame for the actions in battle. For example, in the Battle of Ong Thanh, a veteran shared that he had the opportunity to save someone, but didn’t take it due to fear. “Everytime he tried to get some cover, they’d shoot him. If I got over the fear and felt braver, I probably could have got out there and saved his life” (8:50). The soldiers often allowed guilt to consume them rather than coming to the realization that the war was their