Blog Prompt #3

1. According to Wes Hamilton, the soldiers went through a confusing first few weeks. It was definitely survival of the fittest. The senior soldiers would avoid the newbies in order to avoid possible death so the new soldiers were left on their own to learn how to survive out at Vietnam. The soldiers who stayed alive were finally accepted after a few weeks and given nicknames. The nicknames were fitting to their new personalities, the new person they had become in order to cope with the realities of war. These men were hardened and calloused and became men who lived and breathed for the war. These men learned pretty quick that if they didn't grow up fast, right then and there, they were going to die so they did mature, and I guess maybe a little too fast. They were like machines but humans cannot be machines so they were like immature children who, instead of learning how to communicate in a society, were taught how to point guns and shoot; no mercy. When these men returned to the states, they became vulnerable because they didn't know how to cope with the present society. They were done growing up, but now they were with people who had been nurtured in a completely different environment. The soldiers bodies were home but they themselves were essentially still lost at war. They remembered the people they could relate to that were very close to them during the war. The closeness of death and routine had brought them together like a family, so much that when they had returned home they couldn't deal with a new life. I believe the soldiers had a bigger connection with each other more so than most people who haven't had any hardships or the close proximity with danger and death like the soldiers had. So although they hadn't been on name terms, the nicknames were affectionate, almost childlike, and mirrors the children who had to grow up and become machines.

2. I think O' Brien was trying to convey the loss of innocence which a person, whether male or female, has to go through when stumbling upon some life changing realities. The person becomes aware and acquires knowledge whether they like it or not, and is faced with choices that they may not want to make. Usually reality offers us choices but we don't like what we have to choose from. We have to realize that there usually aren't any good choices, bad choices because most of them will all have negative outcomes. He shows this through Mary's choice to become engrossed in the war, and instead of fighting the changes she welcomes everything and becomes accustomed to the war. She starts to live for the war and the real-ness of it all: the gore, weapons, deaths, and being aware, all were appealing to Mary. Although Fossie tries to get her to be back to how she was as a happy college girl and go back to the states again, Mary knows that she cannot go back to being ignorant. She couldn't live the way she used to because she now knew the things that were going on and she couldn't live without doing nothing. So she ran away.



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3.) O’Brien presents a reality of the Vietnam War and his personal experiences in a way that is neither totally true or totally false. How ‘true’ do you think he is being? How false? What are the advantages and/or disadvantages to presenting a memoir that falls in the middle of fiction and non-fiction? Does it even matter or distract from the story? (2 paragraphs)

Note: A paragraph is 5-7 complete sentences. If you feel so inclined, write a short paragraph and a poem to respond. Also, all of your responses MUST included some type of digital enhancement to support your response. For example, a song like, a YouTube video, a news article….be as creative as you like.

The Things They Carried 2....

Although O'Brien lists some literal "things" the soldiers carry, the soldiers are also carrying other "things" such as emotional burdens and memories. Some emotional burdens they carry are their pride and fear. They carry pride and fear because they want to be the typical patriotic men eagerly serving the country, and are expected to fulfill their duties as men. They are labeled to be a lot of things but they are fearful of failure and things that usually happen to soldiers, such as your friends dying, death, or going crazy from anxiety and experiencing disturbing events and sights. Another "thing" the soldiers carry are memories from their pasts that connect them to their present predicaments, and their oncoming futures. Although a lot of them were physical memories such as letters, photographs or tokens from past relationships, it's what those memories reminded them of and the feelings they got from them that the soldiers carried. The soldiers also carried with them imagination, hope, loyalty, and love. They carried imagination and hope because it was a subconscious way for them to cope with the war; by imagining that there is a better place for them, and what could, should, or would have been, what lives they might be able to have in the future, or how better it would be when the war was over. They're hopeful for a time when they're not always afraid for their lives and burying their friends. The soldiers carry loyalty because they have to, and they carry love for the ones they love back home and for their fellow soldiers. Although they're told that they're expected to fight on behalf of love for their country, the only motivation that let them live that way(an environment where the mindset is that death is a norm and killing is acceptable) is the love they have.

Jimmy Cross is the lieutenant of a group of soldiers in Vietnam. He loves a girl named Martha who goes to college back in the states and had given him a photo, a lucky rock-charm, and two letters signed, "love". Lieutenant Cross occasionally daydeams about Martha even when he knows Martha doesn't love him back. On one day when he was daydreaming again about Martha, one of his soldiers, Ted Lavender, was shot and killed. He never forgave himself for Lavender's death and decided that day that he wouldn't keep hoping in Martha by daydreaming about her. He decided to do his duty as a leader and stop being foolish. His friend's death caused Lieutenant Cross to lose his innocence about the war and made him realize that it's not going to be easy, and that there's no time for things back at home. He realized his duty to his country and essentially, became a man. This came about with a lot of pressure from the war itself, but his friend's death was the final push over the edge.

The movie The Most Dangerous Man in America, the history of the Vietnam War, and the novel "The things They Carried" are alike in that they reveal that many 'things' are not as innocent as they outwardly seem. Daniel Ellsberg realized during his career in the Pentagon that he and thousands of others working under the president were withholding a great scandal; that four presidents so far have spread lies, falsely exaggerated, and withheld a lot of the actual conditions of the war. He also realized that the people working under them had taken advantage of the general public's natural assumption that the president would only act upon his moral correctness. So when one looks back at the history of the Vietnam war they'll usually remember it as bittersweet. It reminds us about our country and it's failures to be the just and honest and free nation it's supposed to be. After that war, people started to realize as a nation that they weren't invincible. That they weren't perfect. And most importantly, they realized that they can't always win. The people of America went through the same "thing" that Lieutenant Jimmy Cross did in the novel, The Things They Carried; both of them were shocked into disillusionment.

Today's Prompt

If you could snap your fingers and change school to be the most amazing place in the world, what would it be like? Give details and explain. :)
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If I could change school to be the most amazing place in the world, I would have high school last for 8+ years, and there wouldn't be any colleges. There would be numerous choices of classes and courses that helps students, from early on, to get into the subjects they're interested in and possibly major in. Students would attend school in the same school they started 7th grade in. This would be a much more amazing school, because students out of high school would not have to pay an extraordinary large sum of money to apply/attend college. Everyone would recycle/reuse books every year, and students don't have the stress of attending a prestigious college versus a smaller college or a community college. I think instead of many different colleges or schools in each district, there should be one giant school in each city or so, with dorms for students who live too far away. Another way the schools could be more amazing would be if school days weren't only from 8am to 2:37pm, but there would be hundreds of classes throughout the day and night, so students who need to work or want to take more or less classes could arrange a workable schedule to their liking.
Schools would be more amazing if they offered many different varieties of classes the students could take.
Schools would be amazing if there was a well-regulated zero tolerance policy for cheating and copying. Too many students cheat and get away with it these days.
Another change would be if teachers wre paid more, because they're in charge of the future of society by teaching students and young children literature, new ways of thinking, how to figure problems out by ourselves, etc.
The last way I could think of to change schools for the better is if the dress code was a little more strict, or if it was actually enforced.