Week 10 Open Topic

One thing I noticed while reading “In Country” is the reversal of roles Sam and Emmit play. After you start to read the book, the reader would assume that Emmit would play the father figure role to Sam but it happens to be the other way around. Sam is the one who takes care of Emmit through attention and support. The war acted as a reversal of maturing and seemed to stop Emmit’s ability to grow as a human. This problem that Emmit is having is not the first time we have seen this in the stories we have read. It is the first time we have seen a young teenager take care of a Vietnam veteran though. Sam actually has no trouble at all taking care of Emmit and does a very good job at listening to him and showing her love for him. It just makes you wonder why Vietnam made all these veterans lose their ability to grow as a human.

Week 10 Assigned Topic

One reoccuring theme that I see in the stories we've read has been PTSD, or post traumactic stress disorder. We saw this in "the Little Red Convertible", when Henry's brother Lyman says, "When he came home, though, Henry was very different, and I'll say this: the change was no good. You could hardly expect him to change for the better, I know. But he was quiet, so quiet, and never comfortable sitting still anywhere but always up and moving around. I thought back to times we'd sat still for whole afternoons, never moving a muscle, just shifting our weight along the ground, talking to whoever sat with us, watching things. He'd always had a joke, then, too, and now you couldn't get him to laugh, or when he did it was more the sound of a man choking, a sound that stopped up the throats of other people around him. They got to leaving him alone most of the time, and I didn't blame them. It was a fact: Henry was jumpy and mean." We all know that war changes people and it's not always for the best. Militaries break their soldiers down physically and emotionally so that they have no mind to fight back with or any body to fight back with, they lose their true identity and are property of the government.

Another example we see of PTSD was in "The Things They Carried." After the war, the psychological burdens the men carry during the war continue to define them. Those who survive carry guilt, grief, and confusion, and many of the stories in the collection are about these survivors’ attempts to come to terms with their experience. In “Love,” for example, Jimmy Cross confides in O’Brien that he has never forgiven himself for Ted Lavender’s death. Norman Bowker’s grief and confusion are so strong that they prompt him to drive aimlessly around his hometown lake in “Speaking of Courage,” to write O’Brien a seventeen-page letter explaining how he never felt right after the war in “Notes,” and to hang himself in a YMCA.

This theme is also apparent in "In Country." We see this early in the story by how quiet Emmett always is. He hardly talks while they're driving and maybe this is due to the company he'd driving with, since he hardly knows mamaw, or if he really is just set apart from the world due to the war. Another example is on page 89, "She bounded in the side door and saw Emmett playing Space Invaders in the darkened living room. Moon Pie was sitting right beside him, like a trusted assistant, as though Emmett were playing a game the cat truly understood. Emmett sat there, firing away, and for the first time Sam had a picture of him with an M-16, in a tropical jungle, firing at hidden faces in the banana leaves." Emmett doesn't have a job and Sam later talk about how she might not be able to defend her Uncle anymore because people thought that he was wounded and that's why he wasn't working, but he wasn't and all he did was play video games and eat Moon Pies. I think it's symbolic though that he's playing a shooting game, Space Invaders, since he was in the army. He'll always have that soldier mentality, and I myself enjoy playing shooter games, but I'm sure it's different for him. The dark room is also symbolic of how he is in his own place away from everyone and everything and while he's playing his game this darkness is able to transport him mentally back to Vietnam. It sets the mood. He is fading from the present back to his past in Nam.

The National Institute of Mental Health is a good source for PTSD. http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/index.shtml
This website says that PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occured or could have occured. They later go on to say that some traumatic events that may trigger PTSD are violent personal assaults, natural or human-caused disasters, accidents, or military combat. This website is helpful because it lists signs and symptoms of this disorder and even describes ways of treating it and coping with it.

One thing that Dr. Berger mentioned to us was the different type of symbolism in this book, so I've been sort of on the lookout for it and I thought I'd throw a couple of ideas out there.

One specific thing that was mentioned was the type of soft drink that is consumed, who consumes it, and at what point. I've tried to make a connection during my reading but really haven't been very successful. My hope is that, by putting it down in a blog, I'll maybe make a connection.

Most of the time, I've noticed that they drink Pepsi. Coke has been mentioned a couple of times, and Dr. Pepper has only been mentioned once, that I remember. I'm going to focus mostly on Pepsi in this post though, because that seems to be the most important soda drink thus far.

Depending on the situation, Pepsi either has a bad connotation or a good connotation. Sam's mother blames Emmett's pimples on Pepsi. " 'I'd have pimples too if I drank as much Pepsi as he does' " (56). Also, Pepsi is mentioned again, in the same conversation between Sam and her mother while they're discussing college. "It wasn't true that gong to college guaranteed a better job. She knew a guy who drove a Pepsi truck and made more than most people who went to college. He was the guy who gave Emmett the Pepsi cap" (55). Sam's mother, perhaps, views Pepsi as a bad thing, but Sam sees it as a good thing. Once again, this is just speculating. I look forward to reading more of the story and perhaps revealing the mystery of the sodas.

Week 10 Assigned

Perhaps the most obvious symbol about the war in this story so far is Agent Orange. Throughout almost every chapter Sam refers to Agent Orange and how it is affecting effecting Emmett’s life. It is apparent to not just the reader, but everyone throughout the story that Emmett is having bad problems with the complexion of his face, which is a side effect of Agent Orange. Even when Jim came to tell Emmett about the veteran dance, he exclaimed” Your face looks bad, Emmett” (60). On top of the problems that Emmett has with his face, he has a persisting pain in his head that does not seem to go away.

Perhaps what is worse than the problems Agent Orange is causing for veterans is the government’s lack of acceptance that things like this actually happened. When Emmett went to the doctor to see about his problems, the doctor said the veterans wanted to “blame everything from a sore toe to a fever blister on Agent Orange” (75). This allows us to realize just how ignorant the US government was, or maybe they just could not admit to the American public that they messed up and would have to compensate those that were hurt during the war.

In Time's article, it explains how the Reagan and Bush administration tried to only give benefits to those with certain alignments that were caused by Agent Orange. This article also talks about how scientist found out years later how Agent Orange can cause cancers and birth defects. This is a perfect representation of our government acting without fully investigating the full effects of the consequences after the fact.

week 10 assigned topic

One thing that has been openly consistent with most of the stories we have read throughout this semester is that during war, people are going to be injured. To soldiers injuries that can often be much more serious than they would like to recognize are something that they like to make light of. This was apparent in A Farewell to Arms when Frederick Henry was caught in an injury during battle. Once examined Frederick was told about to long period of time he was going to have to wait to have his much needed surgery, he simply exclaimed that his injury was not that intense and chose to go with another doctor who could have him back at war in much less time.
Within In Country, the character Emmett is in that same mind set of denial. His niece Sam is convinced that he has been exposed to Agent Orange while in Vietnam. “ ‘ You’ve got Agent Orange. Those pimples are exactly how they described them on the news.’ Agent Orange terrified her. It had been in the news so much lately. ‘I wasn’t exposed to Agent Orange,’ Emmett said” (31). Emmett and Sam have many conversations very similar to this throughout the beginning of the novel, and yet he is determined that there is nothing wrong with him and that he certainly was NOT exposed to Agent Orange.
I had always heard of Agent Orange but I did not know specifically what it was, and after researching it at Cornell University- College of Veterinary Medicine’s website (http://envirocancer.cornell.edu/Glossary/GL.index.cfm) I found that it was a chemical sprayed from airplanes used to remove leaves from plants in the Vietnamese jungle, that often had many terrible health issues appear in those who were exposed to it including cancer.

Week Ten Open Topic

Ashleigh asked me the following question in response to my assigned topic and I felt I should answer it through my open topic:

What effect do you think the Vietnam War had on the generation as a whole and how has that now affected us? Each generation has a certain quality or trait that they try to instill in their offspring. And how do you think it affected the country? If the war ends and the men come back, bitter and cynical, how does that affect the United States as a whole and how does that affect the next generation?

As we all know, the late 60’s and early 70’s were full of protests and demonstrations for peace, many of which ended in violence. This was a reaction by the youth of the nation against the “establishment” and the people in charge, and it greatly affected us as citizens. And when these soldiers came home, they no doubt wanted to keep their children from ever having to go through such a hell. However, as we have seen time and time again, many veterans refused to talk about the war and their experiences in it. So while many children we raised hearing about how terrible war really is, some children simply heard nothing and were left on their own as to interpret what the war was about and how it affected us. This is similar to how Sam experiences the war in the novel. People are always telling her to stop asking about it, like when Pete tells her to “stop thinking about Vietnam” and to “just forget it” (136). Sam’s father never returned to tell her about the war, and her uncle never talks about it.

One of the most important impacts the war had on the country as a whole was how people viewed their government. Following World War II people trusted their government to make good decisions and to take care of them; that feeling was killed with the Vietnam War. People realized that their government felt it was ok to do things without the support of its citizens, simply because the government thought it was the best thing to do. This sentiment continues to this day, people are extremely wary of their leaders and the decisions they make.

On an international level, the war did show the world that we were not going to allow Communism to spread; even if we had to send our own sons and brothers and husbands to die. The real question is, was it worth it? The argument remains to this day, did Communism stop spreading due to internal conflicts in the Soviet Union or was it due to the actions of Western nations attempting to stop it? In my opinion, it’s some of both. So while failing in our primary objective of stopping South Vietnam from becoming Communist, and tarnishing our seemingly flawless military record, we did prove a point to the world. Was it worth it? That’s up to you to decide.

Week 10 Open Topic

When I first started reading this book I was a little skeptical about the way Mason was going to present the story since she herself was not a Vietnam war vet and therefore wouldn't have "first-hand accounts" of what truly went on over there, like O'Brien did. From what I've read so far though she has been able to encompass the war as it truly was. I looked up online some information about this book, and Bobbie Ann Mason got help writing this novel from a friend named W.D. Erhart and Mason makes reference to this person at the beginning of the book. She says that Mason called her and was embarrased about writing a Vietnam war story because she was afraid of introducing military terminology or hardware that was not appropriate to Vietnam, or create scenes or situations that were not possible in reality. W.D. Erhart said that there were a few mistakes here and there like the wrong use of weapon or wrong terminology but overall it was well written and that not many people get to read a best seller before it's even published.

Another thing I thought was interesting was the way Sam handled herself. When you first read this book you are set up with this expectation that she is going to be some little emotionally crushed girl because her dad died in the war and her mom left her to start a new family so you wouldn't blame her for being immature or shy, but we actually see an immature girl that is set in her own ways and doesn't care that she came from a troubled past. I came into the book expecting Emmett to be the father figure for Sam but instead she is the one that watches over him and makes sure that he gets his skin checked out and gets him to the doctor.

Week 10 Assigned Topic

One issue you see a lot throughout Vietnam war literature in particular is Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It has popped up in some form or another in almost all of our Vietnam war literature readings.

In In Country, it takes the form of Emmett Smith, Sam's uncle. Emmett has been affected very deeply by Vietnam, but keeps it to himself most of the time. One instance where his PTSD shows up is during a thunderstorm. "Then a loud thunderclap made the light flicker. Emmett suddenly bent over and clutched his chest..... Thunder crashed again, and Emmett cringed" (31). The sound of the thunder took Emmett back to Vietnam. He could no longer recognize the living room, with the couch and the TV. All he saw was jungle and endless fields of rice paddies. He could no longer recognize his niece and her boyfriend. All he saw was the faces of his comrades as they fought through the dreary night. The sound of thunder affects him in such a way that he loses all of his senses, forgetting where he is, and he relives Vietnam.

Another form of PTSD comes in the form of changes of character. For instance, in "The Red Convertible," Henry comes home from the Vietnam completely changed. "When he came home, though, Henry was very different, and I'll say this: the change was no good. You could hardly expect him to change for the better, I know. But he was quiet, so quiet, and never comfortable sitting still anywhere but always up and moving around" (Erdrich).

Restlessness seems to be a common attribute for the Vietnam veterans. Henry can never sit still (Erdrich), Emmett refuses to settle down and get a job (Mason 45), and Norman Bowlker continues to drive in circles around the lake (O'Brien 137).

All of these stories show that Vietnam had a huge impact on the people involved and it still continues to do so. The most we can do is to learn about what they went through and try to understand.

http://www.vietnampix.com/index.html

This is a really amazing site that gives a brief summary leading up to the Vietnam War and then gives a tour of the Vietnam War by pictures. Each picture has a caption and a brief summary. If you have time, I sincerely recommend you look at this. This is also where I found the picture that goes along with my blog post.

week 10 open topic

There are some instances, very few, that are strikingly similar to The Things They Carried. There was one specific line within the text that really brought me back to the book that talking about when Kiowa died. When Tim O’Brien talked about this memory of his, he really relates to his reader the pictures that were still so clear even after so many years. The way he talked about the “shit” and all of his surroundings and how they smelled like “shit”. The word “shit” really stuck out in my memory from then on out.

Then when Bobbie Ann Mason used the very same word within his text, it was like the word was highlighted in the text. “‘The smell of fish sauce,’ he said, ‘And human shit in the rice patties. And all those people pedaling their bicycles’”(54). This normally would not have even been recognized when I was reading, but only because I read Tim O’Brien’s did this piece of text stick out to me.

The fact that Tim O’Brien did not really like to talk about Vietnam, especially to his daughter, and that Emmett from this story most definitely does not like to talk about his experiences at war also match the two together. The two characters’ personalities are not exactly parallel, however I did seem to connect them with my reading and memories of past readings.

Week 10 Open Topic

One thing that I have found that is interesting throughout this book is Sam's relationship with Emmett. Up to this point, Sam does not view Emmett as someone in authority or higher up than her, but as a friend, and sometimes even as his caretaker.

This was especially interesting to me do to the fact that she has grown up without a father, which would lead the reader to believe through the first few pages that Emmett took on a father figure for Sam.

It is almost the exact opposite, Sam always seems to be the one looking out for Emmett as opposed to vice versa. Sam is the one who finally gets Emmett to go and see about his sores on his face. Sam thought that "Emmett . . . must know he had cancer," while he was "laughing" on their way to the skin doctor. The whole way their Emmett just joked around with Lonnie and Sam, but Sam was very worried but "glad we finally got him here (to the doctor)" (69 & 70).

This trait of Sam's allows us to truly realize how mature she is. She is basically taking care of her uncle who is an unemployed veteran while her mother ran off with her new step-father to raise a new child and start a new life for herself. I think that it will be interesting to see how the relationship between Sam and her uncle develops throughout this book, and see where this maturity that Sam has developed brings her.

Week Ten Assigned Topic

I feel that one really important theme that has appeared again and again in the novels and stories we’ve read is the anger soldiers felt about the way the war was started and handled. O’Brien notes that he felt “certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons” and that war shouldn’t be waged “without knowing why” (O’Brien 40). Even before the war he felt it was a mistake and after serving he affirms this. Similarly, Pete in In Country criticizes the war effort saying that “they’d send us in to do a job, and then they’d take us out, and then we’d have to do it over again, or maybe we’d just let it go” (Mason 134).

It is evident from all of the works we’ve read that many of the soldiers who fought in the war did so without any real purpose or reason. Some people felt compelled to fight for their country, like their dad’s did in World War II, while others were drafted and forced to serve. However, no matter how they arrived in Vietnam, there was a universal loss of innocence and feelings of confusion and sadness.

Time magazine has a really helpful site that looks back on their coverage of the war. It’s especially interesting to read the quotes from the magazines that give a good idea of how the war was started, how it was waged, and how it was ended. In these words we can truly understand what it was like to read about presidential lies and failed strategies on a daily basis.

One issue that is brought up in “In Country” is how these soldiers never really talk about their experience in Vietnam. Their excuse is that no one understands unless you were there. This issue has been brought up in previous readings like “A Soldiers Home” and “Red Convertible”. “In Country” focuses a lot on Emmet and his struggle to return to normalcy after the war. I think one of the main reasons he is having so much trouble fitting back into society is because he is keeping his emotions to himself, despite Sam’s constant questions about the war. “Your imagination is bad enough as it is. I’m not going to feed it (54), is one response Emmet would use to get out of a question about the war.

The silence that Emmet maintains is a form of post traumatic stress. Since Vietnam ended much research has been conducted to look at post traumatic stress. http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/ncmain/information/, informs the reader about post traumatic stress and how someone can get treatment for it.

WEEK NINE SUMMARY

I noticed that a number of people seemed to have skipped the open topic, and only responded to two people instead of the required 4. So, this led to a number of people being zeroed out for the week, which was weird to me because the work in the assigned topic posts was really good so I was sorry not to be able to give credit.

The rules for the blogs are that you have to post the required number of posts weekly or you get no credit for the week at all. If you posted responses to folks in other blogs, or if there's been some technical issue with the blog that prevented you from meeting the requirements, please let me know. I can't figure out why there were so many missing posts...

Also, can the group leader send an invitation again to Zach Walters? He's been reassigned to this group, as per the email I sent over Spring Break :)

Week Nine Open Topic

"But I walked away. I just walked away. And there was a thousand of them like me. Two thousand. More, I heard, a lot more. In the back alleys of Saigon, in the little villages in the highlands and along the sea, trying to keep out of the way of the killing just like these people who took us in and didn't ask any questions" (Butler).

After reading this excerpt from "Missing" I felt it was important to mention something. While this story is about finding love and a family in Vietnam, there are hundreds, possibly thousands of stories about Vietnam soldiers going AWOL without such happy endings. Some men ended up dealing drugs in Saigon, others were simply killed in the jungles. The best example of this is in the movie Deer Hunter, which I won't ruin because I think we're going to watch it. But I will just say that its a very powerful story and its the kind of thing that happened all the time.

And amazingly, Vietnam deserters who did manage to escape and live decent lives in Vietnam or America still aren't in the clear. In this article it talks about how the government is still, to this day, seeking out Vietnam deserters as a way to "warn current-day troops in Iraq against deserting." One man was arrested in Fort Worth in early 2006 after going AWOL in November of 1969. The article also discusses how Presidents Ford and Carter attempted to pardon these soldiers who deserted but the plans were essentially failures, as it shows in this article. The war is over, the cause is dead, can't we just learn our lesson and move on?

Week 9 Assigned Post

During this explication of a scene from "Missing," I am going to explain how this story, and the specific scene, tie into the theme of the aftermath of war and its effects on the people who were involved.

"Missing" is specifically involved with the effect of one former soldier and his decision to stay in Vietnam and start a family. This story is different than most Vietnam war stories. Most talk about the horrors of Vietnam. "Missing" is celebrating the Vietnamese culture and condemning the American culture.

"And I said, 'Each new year when I was a child, the god of the hearth went to heaven from my house in America. He came to the council of the gods and he said, There are children in this house and they sleep each night in great fear and they have places on their bodies that are the color of the sky in the highlands of Vietnam just after the sun has disappeared. And they pray, even the youngest of them, a boy, for escape and when they love each other, these children, it is to pray that each of the others escapes. And they know that this will happen for them, if at all, one at a time. And this house is empty of incense. And this house sees no spirits in the world....' And I thought of this place in Vietnam where I lay and how it grows coffee and it grows tobacco, and in that other life there was a time in the morning when I could slip out of the house and there was no one around but me and I knew that one day I would escape, and inside they drank coffee and smoked cigarettes and read the newspaper" (Bulter).

Bulter is trying to make a contrast here for the reader. The narrator mentions that he grows coffee and tobacco, and later he alludes back to the coffee and tobacco that were wasted in his American life. He is trying to show the difference between the consumerist American culture, and the Vietnamese culture. In a way, this is just a model of creation versus destruction. Vietnam creates, and America destroys. That is really what "Missing" is trying to tell the reader.

It also shows America in a bad light by describing the house and the children. The children have "places on their bodies that are the color of the sky in the highlands of Vietnam just after the sun has disappeared" (Bulter). The narrator is showing that he is safer in Vietnam. He isn't beaten and given bruises in Vietnam. The house is also "empty of incense" (Butler), which shows a sign of disrespect for the gods, because they "burned incense in [their] kitchens for the god of the hearth" (Bulter).

This short story gives us a different perspective on Vietnam war literary, reminding us that there are other points of view out there. The aftermath of the war for the narrator of this story left him free of all his ghosts from his previous life, and an acceptance to his American heritage, as well as gaining the understanding of his Vietnamese family, friends, and neighbors. Overall, this passage specifially shows the difference between an arrogant, greedy America, and a reverent and submissive Vietnam, shown by the life of one man.

Week 9 Assigned Topic

While reading "Missing" I could not help but to reflect back on the "Sweet heart of the Song Tra Bong." They seemed to be so simliar to one another in the first go around of reading it. How when they got to Vietnam it was not much something they thought of much. However, with out realization these two characters became emerged in a deep love for their surroundings. Both of these individuals felt something that had been missing in their lives was obviously filled in some was during there time spent in Vietnam.

Although this story reminded me alot of Tim Obrien's piece it also was very different. Obrien's character fell in love with the war atmosphere. She loved learning about how to shoot guns and war tactics. In "Missing" there was a different kind of comfort found. He found a life there, something he had been missing throughout his entire existence, a place where he felt at home." I am not missing. I'm here. I know the smell of the wood fires and the incense wife burns for the dead father and mother who gave her to me and the smell of my daughter's hair washed from the big pot in our backyard to catch the rain water.." This tells the reader that he wants to be nowhere else not because of the war but because of the location, the people, the culture, everything about this place is what makes him happy and at ease.

Week 9 Assigned

Compare and Contrast

In Mason’s novel In Country, Emmett is in Vietnam during the war just as Tim O’Brien was. These two characters contrast drastically in the way in which they cope with the aftermath of the war.

Emmett’s way of dealing with this war is really not to talk about it. The only thing that he really talks about up to this point in the book is the “prettiest bird [he] ever saw,” which was the egret (36). Besides that, Emmett does not really go into detail about what happened to him during his time in Vietnam. One way he does seem to cope with it is by drinking and smoking his “sweet stuff” (35). As of now he basically is living off of his sister while living with his niece, and has not been able to bring himself to get a real job. The only time that we read about Emmett really talking about the war is when “Sam was seven or eight, Emmett . . . told Sam war stories’ (51), but besides this time, we don’t really understand what all Emmett went through.

Opposed to Emmett, O’Brien does talk about his experiences while in the war. Although O’Brien actually is telling his story for a good portion of his book, it is apparent that his way of dealing with the things that he encountered in Vietnam is to write them out.

These stark contrasts in dealing with this allow the reader to understand that people have to cope differently in situations. IN this case, O’Brien is able to cope with the war through writing out stories about it and allowing us to relive his own experience, where as Emmett does not really talk about anything from Vietnam, he just smokes and drinks away his anxieties of the war.


One scene from In Country was a complete reminder of “Hearts and Minds.” At the end of Chapter 4 in Part 2, Sam describes what she saw on the news once they got their first color TV. She saw “a child in a T-shirt and no pants r[un] down the road” (51). This seems just as one of the scenes from the film, watching small children run down the road while air planes sprayed Agent Orange from above.

Compare/Contrast

The story “Missing” and the chapter “Sweetheart in the Song Tra Bong” in Tim O’Brien’s book “The Things They Carried” are very much a like. These two different stories talk about an American who becomes involved with the Vietnam culture so much that they decide to never leave Vietnam. These two people have an emptiness in them that they discover while in Vietnam and decided that there life is better off living in this foreign country. Even though these individuals become part of the MIA, their intentions are to not be found by any one.

These two individuals do have a different reason to why they decide to live in Vietnam. The character from the “Missing”, decides to live in Vietnam because he wanted to get away from his life in America. He was abused as a child which left him with no ambition to come back from the war. He found a peace in the village that he was staying at and a sense of family which he never had in America. Mary Anne from “The Things They Carried” had a very normal life back home but she became so intrigued with her new surroundings that she had no intention on ever leaving. She also was more concerned with the war and geography in Vietnam than the actual culture.

Week Nine Assigned Topic

“Missing” is a very intriguing story full of detail and I feel that one paragraph towards the end really helps convey the theme of the story. It starts out with the main character going off by himself and looking at his hands, commenting that his skin wasn’t as dark as most the adults in his village. He says his skin “could be the skin of a Vietnamese child” (Butler). This is an important metaphor because he is like a child in the community because he has only been there a few years. Before he stumbled into the village his skin was white and he had no family to love and call his own. Once he becomes a part of this community and he starts a family, his skin begins changing to look more like theirs. His whiteness symbolized his lack of family and love, and now that void is slowly being filled as his skin grows darker.

He goes on to say that the only things keeping him from looking like a Vietnamese child are the “blonde hairs on my knuckles” (Butler). These hairs are reminders of his old life in America, and all the pain that comes with it. “I looked at my arm and there was a forest of blonde hair on this dark arm, and I was on the porch swing… I rose but always came down again” (Butler). When he sees this visual reminder of his past life all of his feelings and memories about it come flooding back. It’s as if the porch swing was carrying him away from his broken and violent home, but it never left its chains and he was stuck there, always bringing him back down and next to the door of his house. “Against all that I desperately desired, I would go in” (Butler).

Thematically, what these metaphors are telling us is that the character desperately wants to replace his old life with a new peaceful one. However, replacing it will never work because it will always be there no matter what, as long as his blond hairs are there to remind him. What he really needs to do it accept his past, move on from it, and make the most of his new life. As people we all want to be loved and accepted and some of the hardest moments in our lives are the ones where we lack that, where we feel unimportant or replaceable. The main character finally accepts his old life for what it is by explaining it to his new life; his daughter, his wife, and his village.

WEEK EIGHT SUMMARY

A great week for many of you, some really insightful posts and lively dialogue following...

Week 8 Open Topic

The movie that we watched in class was really a thought provoking experience. It seems that today society too often grows accustom to seeing people in movies be killed or tortured, and we don’t really stop to think about what it would actually be like to see someone get shot. I know that I am guilty of this, my favorite types of movies are war movies. After watching this movie in class, it really made me stop and think about what it would really be like to be in war.

The most graphic scene in my opinion was the scene in which an American soldier was violently abusing what looked to be a teenage Vietnamese boy. He was constantly kicking him and hitting him with the butt of his rifle. The boy looked scared for his life and seemed as if he didn’t know what to do. It made me mad that someone could take the power that was given to them, trying to keep Vietnam from going communist, and abuse it by hurting an innocent, what looked to be, teenager.

The film helps us understand the book by showing us how the Vietnamese people affected by the war felt about the US involvement in the war. In the book we do not really get an image of how the opposing side felt about the United States’ involvement in Vietnam. This documentary helps us understand the destruction and devastation that took place in Vietnam.

Week Eight Open Topic

I knew what my next open topic would be the second I finished reading the novel. I wish it was as easy as me spitting out some historical facts like I did for last week’s topic but I know if I did that I wouldn’t be doing what in my heart I know I must do. I wish I could say that Linda’s story in The Things They Carried was just another sad story to me and that once it was out of sight it was out of mind but truthfully that isn’t the case.

Erin Elizabeth Crowley, a classmate and a close friend of mine, lost her battle with cancer in April of last year. She was eighteen years old, and she was incredible. My graduating class consisted of about 100 kids; everyone knew everyone, and everyone loved Erin. As long as I live I’ll never forget the day they called the senior class together to tell us she was being put on hospice care. She had been weaker than usual for a few weeks and hadn’t been coming to school but no one expected to hear the news. This wasn’t my first experience with death, my aunt had died of cancer several years before. But I never really knew her very well because she lived over seas and I remember the real reason I cried at the funeral was because I saw my dad crying, which I had never seen before. But this was different, she was my friend. She was just a kid, like me.

Several of us visited Erin as often as we could the next few months before she passed away; I always feared each goodbye would be our last. She continued getting weaker and weaker, and so did we. I hated seeing her that way, I wanted her to be like she was before, so full of life and always laughing. But I knew I would never see that again, and that kills me inside to this day.

On our prom night we went to go see her before the dance and her parents said she was going to try to make an appearance at prom but it would depend how she felt. So we left and a few hours into the dance her parents rolled her in on her wheelchair, much to the delight of everyone present. All her classmates, who hadn’t seen her in several months, came by to say hi. That night she was named prom queen, and no one ever deserved that honor more than her.

Several weeks later, I pulled into the school parking lot and walked towards my girlfriend’s car as I always did to say good morning and walk in with her. About halfway between my car and hers she sent me a text message telling me that Erin’s mom had called and that she had passed away in her sleep. I stopped for a second, letting it sink in, and rushed into the car. We didn’t stay at school that day, we simply couldn’t do it. Our councilor told us that they were having a service for her and that we should stay for it but that wasn’t an option. If I had seen people whispering to each other or laughing or anything besides how I felt they should be reacting I would have just gone off on them.

I was much older than Tim O’Brien was when he lost Linda, but that doesn’t mean I understand why my friend had to die anymore than he did. But when I read what he wrote it really inspired me because it’s something I’ve always thought. “But in a story I can steal her soul. I can revive, at least briefly, that which is absolute and unchanging. In a story, miracles can happen” (236). There aren’t many things I know for sure in this life, in fact there’s almost nothing. But one thing I do know is that Erin in not truly dead and she never will be. She’s always with me, she’s with everyone she ever touched and ever knew. As long as there are people to listen, I’ll tell Erin’s story. And as long as there are people who love her, and people who hear about her, she can never really die. I won’t let her.

Maybe this was too much; maybe this was more than any of you cared to read and maybe I’m too far off topic. But this was something I felt that I had to share, for better or for worse. She won’t let me keep it to myself; she always tried to boss me around in life, why stop now?

Here is a link to her website.

Literature of Vietnam is unique. Right after the war for a few years there actually was not literature coming out about refelctions from soldiers or witnesses. This in my eyes is because Vietnam was not favored by America upon the time when soldiers were returning home from South East Asia. Vietnam took a huge emotional toll on a lot of different people, a toll that most of these individual are yet to rid of. This whole war was something that everyone wanted to forget as a whole, and if writing would have come out directly following the soldiers homecoming, it probably would have been rejected for the most part.
Now that we do have these memoirs from different people and different views it is interesting to look at how they write about their own personal experiences. It all comes down to one bottom line, they want to tell the reader, the nation, even the world about what they thought about while they were there, what they felt while serving their country, and what really happened in thier opinion. Different people are more than certianly going to have different views and styles of writiting this information, which makes it all the more unique, but it all comes down to the writers feelings and what message they want to send about the war and how it has affected them or the world they live in.

After finishing “The Things They Carried” and watching the video in class, I noticed how often these soldiers did not really know what they were fighting for. Even in day to day activities they only thing they would know for sure that they were going to do that day is walk. I think that is why many Vietnam veterans did not like to talk about the war after they came home, because they were confused on why they were there. The chapter “Notes”, talks about Norman Bowker and how he is never the same after war. Norman after the war became depressed and never let anyone know how he felt except for Tim O’Brien through a letter. This bottled up depression led to his death in 1978. I think that writing about the war is a way to help let veterans release their emotions and help deal with their thoughts. That is why I think there was a major outpour of Vietnam literature during the early 1980’s.

This graph shows the percentage of people who said no when asked if they thought sending troops to Vietnam was a mistake.
DATE
PERCENT WHO SAID NO
August 1965
61
March 1966
59
May 1966
49
September 1966
48
November 1966
51
February 1967
52
May 1967
50
July 1967
48
October 1967
44
December 1967
46
February 1968
42
March 1968
41
April 1968
40
August 1968
35
October 1968
37
February 1969
39
October 1969
32
January 1970
33
April 1970
34
May 1970
36
January 1971
31
May 1971
28

The definition for Vietnam literature contains many characteristics to this unique subject. Like Susan Farell states in her essay “The Literature of the Vietnam War”, “The bulk of these early accounts are personal narratives which focus on the experiences of the combat infantryman--the grunt or foot soldier.” This large amount of personal stories shows that one characteristic of the definition of Vietnam literature is that it is personal. Another characteristic of Vietnam literature is the honest truth it displays. This truth however does not depict the usual heroic war story that many other wars have personified. This truth shows the atrocity and evil that these soldiers faced and did. The chapter Style in “The Things They Carried” shows a good representation of Vietnam literature. This chapter talks about walking through a village that had just been burned down and seeing three burned bodies and a young girl who was dancing outside of her burned hut after her family had just been killed. The personal narrative and true honesty in this story represents what Vietnam literature truly is.

Week 8 Open Topic

From my last post, I got a lot of thoughtful comments, especially Brian's that really made me start thinking about why O'Brien chose to add the chapter "Good Form" where he did, and I've decided to go more in depth about that in my open topic post for this week.

Like I said, as a reader, you really have to already accept that the factual validity of the story doesn't matter. If you haven't come to terms with that, you aren't likely to understand the book and its purpose, and it won't matter where he put the chapter in. It doesn't matter if it's true. What matters is if you can feel what he felt when you read his words.

In the last chapter of the book, "The Lives of the Dead," we learn about Linda. I believe this is why he put "Good Form" where he did. Linda, his first love, dies of cancer at age nine, and he still dreams her alive. Linda is O'Brien's way of connecting love to war. After all, a war story isn't really about war, is it? It's about love.

"It wasn't a war story. It was a love story" (O'Brien 85).

O'Brien is trying to tell us that the whole book isn't really about war. It's about love, and Linda is the final connection. On O'Brien's fourth day at war, he sees a dead old man, who reminds him of Linda. He still dreams her alive, because that's his way of saving her. He still dreams Ted Lavender and Kiowa and the old man and Curt Lemon alive, because a war story isn't really about war. It's about love.

Was there really a Linda? Did she really exist? Did she really wear a little red cap and die at the age of nine from a brain tumor?

Does it matter?

Week 8 Assigned

In Susan Farrell’s essay about Vietnam literature, she talks about how authors of Vietnam literature many times do not place the blame of their actions upon themselves, but upon “forces greater than himself.”

These forces are apparent in Tim O’Brien’s novel in the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story,” especially when he tells the story of Rat Kiley and the water buffalo.

In this story, O’Brien describes the brutal scene of Rat shooting this baby water buffalo. He tells of how Rat “shot it in the right front knew . . . shot off the tail . . . [and then] went off by himself” (78 and 79). This brutal scene is pivotal in this chapter because it describes how war stories cannot generalize.

The reason for Rat to do this to this baby innocent animal was because his friend Curt Lemon had just died. Curt and Rat were playing catch with a smoke grenade when all of a sudden Curt stepped on a “booby-trapped 105 round” and was blown up (78). O’Brien is trying to justify what Rat did do the baby buffalo through the death of his good friend Curt, just as Susan Farrell suggested Vietnam Literature does in her website. http://www.cofc.edu/VietnamRetro/farrell.html

The fact is that the things that these soldiers had to deal with on an every day basis drove some close to or even to insanity. As is the case with Rat Kiley, he was taking his emotion out on something that was innocent and young. This seems to somewhat hint at the fact that these soldiers would take their anger from the war out on anything that they found, which can explain the violence to the innocent Vietnamese during this war.

Week 8 Assigned Topic

Vietnam war stories are hard to define, but I think I've got down a decent definition.

Vietnam war stories can be before the war, during the war, or after the war. Vietnam war stories can be about everything and nothing at once. Vietnam war stories can lack a moral. Vietnam war stories can go on, and never end.

But Vietnam war stories must have a truth, any kind of truth. It doesn't have to be factually true. It can be emotionally true.

"Story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth" (O'Brien 179).

"Facts [are] formed by sensation, not the other way around" (O'Brien 89).

During the course of reading this book, I have been so confused on if what I was reading was true or not. We are, after all, in an "Intro to Fiction" class. But, as I read O'Brien's chapter, "How to Tell a True War Story," I decided that it didn't really matter if it was factually true or not.
"Absolute occurence is irrelevant" (O'Brien 83).

After I had decided that the factual truth didn't matter, I came to the chapter "Good Form." It all makes sense after that.

A war story is not written so we can understand the soldiers' experiences. It is not even written to just let us know what happened. It, in fact, is not even really written for the benefit of the reader at all. It is written to help the writer understand what happened. It is written for the writer's benefit.

"Here is the happening-truth. I was once a soldier. There were many bodies, real bodies with real faces, but I was young then and I was afraid to look. And now, twenty years later, I'm left with faceless responsibilities and faceless grief.... What stories can do, I guess, is make things present. I can look at thing I never looked at. I can attach faces to grief and love and pity and God. I can be brave. I can make myself feel again" (O'Brien 180).

This passage is connected to the chapter, "The Man I Killed." His emotion and guilt is equal to him killing the man, and it fulfills his need to give a face to his faceless grief and responsibility.

To be a war story, it must have a truth and it must benefit the writer.
That is the definition of a war story.

Week Eight Assigned Topic

First and foremost, I think a Vietnam story can’t really be about war. The stories worth telling aren’t about coordinates on a map or hard numbers and facts. The stories that really matter are about people fighting and dying next to each other, doing everything they can for the man next to them. The real stories are about raw emotions; fear, hope, hatred, pride, and yes, even love. O’Brien even mentions this when he tells the story of Curt Lemon and he says “It wasn’t a war story. It was a love story” (85). People don’t want to hear about tactics and maneuvers, they can’t relate to these things. But everyone knows what it’s like to have a good friend. Everyone knows what it’s like to be afraid. Emotions are what set us apart from all other life on this planet and they are the only things that connect all of us together.

Along with not being about war, I feel a true Vietnam story is about the little things. The pantyhose around Henry Dobbins neck, the way the sunlight glowed on Curt Lemon as he was lifted into it, the star shaped hole on the man O’Brien may or may not have killed. It’s the little details that stick with you in the end. It’s the details that make the story believable, whether it’s true or not. Susan Farrell mentions this in her article when she says “Vietnam writers often focus on the surface details of daily existence--the everyday routines of war, the jokes, conversations, superstitious rituals--rather than on larger historical or political questions about the war.”

I feel a story that exemplifies both of these aspects is one that I’ve already mentioned twice, Curt Lemon’s death. The story was about “sunlight” and about “love”, not war (85). The story wasn’t told to make people sad, it was told to show the love between Rat Kiley and Curt. Like any good tragedy, it demonstrates that in losing a lot, you realize how much you had. Additionally, it is a story rich with detail and the “little things” that stick in your mind days after you read it. “It’s about the special way that dawn spreads out on a river when you know you must cross the river and march into the mountains and do things you are afraid to do” (85).

WEEK SEVEN SUMMARY

Lots of great stuff this week, in particular Brian's stellar Open Topic post on 2/27; if you haven't read it, you definitely should!

A couple of people seem to have forgotten a post, and there are also some missing responses to others. Since this project is worth 40% of your grade in the class, it's important to develop a good posting schedule and not fall behind...

WEEK SIX SUMMARY

I appreciated the interesting posts and the helpful sources contained in them!

I was not able to open the post titled Soldier's Struggle, which I think must have been Cory's. Maybe there's some kind of server error (the site is running REALLY slowly today) -- anyway, could the author just send me this post in an email message?

I'd like to offer the suggestion that responses to others need to be substantive, meaning "with substance," so beyond "that's cool" or "that's interesting." The idea is to engage with each other, picking up the points made by others, making connections, adding to the general discussion of each other's topics, etc. rather than just offering support for one another (which is valuable, too, but that's called an "affective message" and should be tied to more substantive commentary).