Spin
When I read the line in Tim O’Brien’s The Things they Carried “All that peace, man, it felt so good it hurt. I just want to hurt it back.” I had a hard time trying to decipher what the author was saying. I believe you really have to think hard about what the man has gone through and how the war has changed him, to understand the true meaning of what he’s saying. The man had just been recuperating at a secure facility, away from the chaos of the war, with a beautiful Red Cross nurse, and then all of a sudden all he wants to do is return to the war, suffer sleepless nights behind enemy lines, living under the constant threat of being blown up from a land mine or shot in the head. From the security and and comfort of our bed from which we are reading this book, the comment seems absolutely ludicrous, but that’s because we haven’t shared the same experiences as the soldiers that fought day in and day out in the unforgiving jungles of Vietnam and now longs to return to the danger. One of the main problems soldiers have always faced and still face today is the challenge of re-adjusting to the dull, peaceful civilian life after fighting in a war. After living under such intense conditions these men have almost all accepted the fact that at any moment they might be blown to pieces or shot in the head.These men have already accepted death and they are willing to sacrifice their lives for their country and their beliefs. But when their tour of duty is completed or they are sent to a military hospital they are unprepared for the peace and tranquility, they are so unaccustomed to the peace that it hurts. These trained killing machines would rather be suffering the out in the front lines than be resting in a hospital with a lovely nurse and anything they wanted.
What I believe this quote says about peace is that it is only a concept embraced by civilians and that actual soldiers would rather be putting their lives in danger than be stuck in a peaceful hospital. Though this view of peace is not one that is accepted by all soldiers, that is how Tim O’Brien portrays peace in the book. What this tells us about the Vietnam War is that after fighting for so long in a hostile environment such as Vietnam, these men have all gained a certain respect and love for the pain and discomfort and that it took many men who probably never imagined themselves as soldiers such as Tim O’Brien, and turned them into fighters and killers. In this book we can see how the draft would take boys that would never consider killing another man, and then turn them into these creatures that just couldn't get enough of the pain and wanted to keep fighting. Though this man might seem courageous for returning to the front lines even after he’s been injured, I believe all he really is is just a boy whose sense of reasoning has been greatly distorted by the war.
War Letters
Dear Mom and Dad,
As I lay here under the eerie cover of night, I attempt repeatedly to make out the physique of your faces but to no avail. It seems like ages since I last saw you on that bleak, sodden, September morning, as I pulled out of the driveway and headed for Reagan International Airport. I still see the disappointment in yours eyes, questioning the nature of this war, pleading me to run, anywhere, anywhere but the God forsaken country of Vietnam, but I must serve my country for I have dreams and those dreams do not consist of getting deported of or spending the rest of my life in jail. You know how much I hate war, you have raised me well, you taught me at a young age that thou shalt not kill, but the time comes when we must stand up for our beliefs and save a nation from the steel hard grip of communism. For it is not a secret that if one more nation falls into the clutch of communism the rest of the countries will fall like dominoes and before you know it we will be led by a tyrant and we will no longer have any freedoms. I know that me heading off to war greatly disturbs you, that after the death of my sister you desperately do not want to lose another child, but you must see that I am doing this for my children, so that they can live in the same great United States that I live in.
I've been marching through the dense jungles of Vietnam for a little over a month now and the experience has been life changing, I have finally gotten a chance to see the world, to experience a whole different culture. Sure it’s been hard transitioning to a whole new lifestyle, strict procedures, endless marches, have to patrol the perimeters of our camp at the darkest hours of the night, I have befriended many soldiers along the way and am now good friends with a man named Derek Mosher from Arizona. Earlier this week I discovered that he too will be attending Georgetown University upon his return to the United States he tells me that his father went there and says that it is a magnificent university. I will be going to Japan in three weeks for some R&R and I hope to be able to call you from there. I am writing to you because you are the only people whose impressions I find important and I know that I hurt you both greatly by denying you advice and marching off to war but I hope you can forgive me and I hope that upon my arrival we can reconcile and patch up the gaping whole in our relationship. I just want to share these thoughts with you because I want you to know that I feel safe and secure and I don’t want you to worry about me, tell the family and neighbors that I say hello and I hope to see them soon. I have spared you the details of the war because I know that they will only further hinder our relationship and worry you even more but just know that I am safe and no matter what happens you have my word that I will see you soon as the same boy that left home just a few months ago. I love you all very much and I hope to talk to you soon.
Love, Patrick
The Things they Carried
My parents beg me to remove unnecessary textbooks and dead weight from my backpack on nearly a daily basis, claiming that it weighs so much that it’s going to break my back. The conversation is so common now that it has practically become part of my morning routine for getting to school. My backpack is saturated with bold three subject notebooks, which for the most part are unnecessary for the bulk of my classes; dense textbooks, which contribute to the greater part of the weight; a recently purchased Toshiba laptop, though its condition tells a different story; a binder, which is the key to my organization and the home to all my worksheets and supplies; and last, but certainly not least, my electronics such as my cellphone and my iPod which are the center of all my communications and entertainment.
The most important item I chose to hump with me every day I believe is my smart phone. With my phone not only can a have a conversation in real time with someone on the other side of the globe in real time, but I can explore the vast ends of the Internet, see a picture of Uncle Jeff’s new dog just seconds after he posts it, and even find my way back home from practically any location on the face of the earth. Communications have developed exponentially in the past century to the degree that I find it nearly impossible to relate to my parent’s old stories of calling collect since they ran out of money or calling the operator before being able to speak to anyone. Such advanced communications have become such a major component of nearly everyone’s lives nowadays that we perform incredible feats without even thinking twice about them. Calling, texting, and using social media have become such fundamental aspects of our everyday lives that we can barely fathom a world without them. Though cell phones seem like such integral parts of our lives today, I have no doubt that in 10 years people will be astounded by how we were able to survive with such primitive technology.
Another item that I chose to hump everyday are my multiple three subject notebooks. This summer as I prepared for my journey into the unknown abyss of High School I had received so much information about what life as a High Schooler would be like, that my distorted view of how challenging High School was, caused me to panic and buy all three subject notebooks. I believe my colossal notebooks with only a few pages written in, symbolizes my expectations of how difficult High School would be and how difficult it really is. With the exception of my AP European History notebook, which is nearly full after less than a semester, my notebooks are generally empty and I believe that this not symbolizes my expectations and my reality, but it also represents how our society has changed. Gone are the days where I would sit peacefully at my desk with my notebook and a sharp number two pencil and write a story, nowadays we all collaborate on Google Docs, or write our essays using Microsoft Word. I kind of miss the feeling of crisp paper and spiral bound notebooks, but we live in a modern age and we must embrace it.
I believe that what I choose to hump everyday not only represents me and who I am, but it shows who we as a society have become an I think that is the important thing to take away from this.
Vietnam War
Before our intriguing lesson on the Vietnam War, the vast majority of my knowledge derived from Hollywood and occasional trips to the Vietnam War Memorial on especially sunny summer days in Washington DC. Sure I knew the basics of the war, United States vs. the Viet Cong, the time period in which the war was fought, the reason the United States entered the war, sure I knew that there were many people who were strongly opposed to the war and the draft that made it so controversial, but what I failed to realize was the caliber of such actions, the consequences of the war, the degree of the protests against the war, the intense hate for the war. One of the things that shocked me was when I found out that 60% of the men on tours of duty in Vietnam were 21 and under,they were just boys who had been persuaded by the fear of disappointing society and their families to accept the draft and head into the dense, unforgiving jungle of Vietnam.
One of my biggest misconceptions of the Vietnam War was my failure to realize the importance of the television on the war. Before this war, few Americans had the ability to watch what was happening in foreign wars and what they could see was mainly propaganda, but throughout the course of the war the TV became most Americans primary source for getting the news and now these families could watch the horrors of the war from their living rooms. Unlike previous wars where the footage released was edited and mainly propaganda, this footage was uncut and showed the everyday american family something they found themselves unable to handle anymore and these protests are ultimately what helps bring this war to an end.
As we continue to read The Things they Carried and discuss the Vietnam War, I find my knowledge of the war, which I previously thought was impressive, lacking and I find myself learning new facts about the war every few pages. This is a very dark chapter in American history and one that I hope we can learn a valuable lesson from.
