E-Portfolio

Entering school this semester, I didn't realize how extensive my schedule would be. I took ENG 101 in the Spring with Laura and knew the workload that was going to be asked of me in this semester. Looking back, I am glad that I did take this course with her, as I knew her teaching style better than other instructors of the same course. The demand was definitely there, and it pushed me to an area that I never have been pushed by a class before.

Throughout the semester, I learned that I really do need to take time out of my busy schedule to study, read, or do whatever is necessary for my complete attention to my studies. This semester has been tough for me due to the multiple courses that require a lot of time, but has challenged me to do my best in everything I have done. This has also taught me to schedule my time wisely, as there is only a select number of hours a week that I have to work on the studies before life overwhelms me. I am thankful for the education received during this course, as it will help me become a better student and appreciate the teaching I have gained from Laura.

Overall, this course has been a major challenge. The readings were not as I expected them, and I definitely did not expect to learn how to analyze a text that I really didn't understand to begin with. Thankfully, I was able to complete this, so it was a real sign of relief for me.

All in all, I am glad that I was able to take this course with Laura as the instructor. If given the chance, I would do it all over again, but focus more on it than I did this semester.

History in Context

Throughout history, wars have been scattered between many continents and fought by many countries. Some of the best documented wars have occurred within the last century. Between World War I and II, there is a large amount of documentation to show the ugliness of the wars, as well as to tell the stories of the battles that many men and women lost their life in. These wars are very well documented, but the Vietnam War may have more information about it in this current time than any other conflict that the United States has been involved in. Everything from history writers to former military soldiers have written about this war, and how ugly it really was. Tim O’Brien was one of the many members of the military that wrote about this war. Through his writings, many people have been able to see into the eyes of a soldier and get their only true glimpse of what happened in Vietnam. In O’Brien’s book, The Things They Carried, O’Brien used a collection of short stories to show the consequences of the violence of the Vietnam War. Through this style writing, O’Brien gave the reader a different perspective of the Vietnam War than most authors would give. The Things They Carried was not necessarily meant to be a historic timeline of the Vietnam War, but more to point out what could happen to a soldier, mentally and physically, while in a war.

Without fully understanding the different stories written in The Things They Carried, a reader may be confused as to what is really happening in the book. Janis E. Haswell wrote this regarding the writings in O'Brien's collection: "Our failure to understand is grounded not so much in the horror and violence of war itself, but in the nature of personal experience. What O'Brien offers (and that critics affirm) is not a report of the war, but a "rehappening" shaped by the memory and imagination, making story-telling or writing itself on par with the war as the subject of the collection (Haswell 94-95)."

Based off what Haswell said regarding the writings of O'Brien, there are no real historical accuracy when reading the writings of O’Brien. Rather, O'Brien is recounting his own memories, whether they be good or bad, regarding the war and its horror.

The Vietnam War was one of the deadliest conflicts that the United States was involved in. In this conflict, there was a large amount of horrid deaths, and many soldiers watched their friends get killed from many guerilla warfare tactics used by the Vietnamese army. Sometimes, the best remedy for a soldier is to tell someone about what they saw, but, as O'Brien said in many places in The Things They Carried, people do not want to hear about what happened. They only want to live in their own fantasy world that none of this will ever happen. Sadly, these people live this way and are distanced from the reality that war will happen, and that it is a fact of life. War has been around as long as history has known, and will be around until the end of time. Knowing this, the toll that war will take on a soldier will be affecting soldiers as well.

The death toll of American soldiers from the Vietnam War totaled 58,148, along with 304,000 soldiers injured out of the 2.59 million people who served ("Vietnam War Info"). When Tim O'Brien returned to the site of the My Lai massacre, he interviewed Mrs. Ha Thi Quy in February 1994, who was a survivor of the massacre. The chilling report Mrs. Quy gave would cause anyone to shudder with hatred or remorse. Mrs. Quy told O'Brien that she lost 9 out of 10 people in her family that day. As Mrs. Quy was telling her story of what happened that day, O'Brien was remembering different people who were involved, such as when "a young lieutenant pistol-whipped her without the least expression on his face… Mad Mark, we called him" (O'Brien n.p.). O'Brien spoke of "Mad Mark" by saying "But he wasn't mad. He was numb. He'd lost himself" (O'Brien n.p.). Not only had an officer forgot where or who he was, he had to have lost all care in the world to have been able to be involved in a massacre such as this, even if it was ordered by a superior. This is the type of effect this war had on men and women, and this is why authors like O'Brien are against wars, yet they speak of their own experiences to inform people that it is just as bad as others may present it.

Treatment for soldiers who have been to war can become very costly. O’Brien told that he had "been treated for depression, $8,000 or $9,000 worth. Some of it has worked. Or was working"(O'Brien). War is hell, and anyone who has been involved in war will tell you that. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is more common in war victims than any other type of trauma that it has even been nicknamed the "Gulf War Syndrome" due to the soldiers who were involved in that war who came home with PTSD. Reading through O'Brien's work, it is almost apparent that his way of coping with the stresses of his time in Vietnam would be through his writings, whether it is his books or his letters to news companies.

Tim O'Brien did not go to war because he was drafted. "More than anything, it was this desperate love craving that propelled me into a war I considered mistaken, probably evil" (O'Brien). His longing for love drove him to do something he was against. O'Brien considered running to Canada or even going to jail. These thoughts were conveyed in his story from The Things They Carried named On the Rainy River. Running from the draft notice he received was the first option O'Brien had in mind. "But in the end I could not bear the prospect of rejection: by my family, my country, my friends, my hometown. I would risk conscience and rectitude before risking the loss of love" (O'Brien n.p.). If it weren't for his longing for love, then O'Brien would have never been able to write about his experiences, nor would he have been able to educate people on the horrors of war. Knowing the aspect of the knowledge O'Brien brings to the subject, the Vietnam War never would have been told in his way had he chose to follow his conscience and leave his longing for love. Running to Canada was an option, but his future was more important to him than the present thoughts.

Tim O'Brien may not have used his own exact experiences in writing about the Vietnam War as others had, but his approach was to inform of the horrors, and to give his own recollection of what he learned while he was in Vietnam. Tim O’Brien wrote this about the horror of watching fellow soldiers die in battle, or to be severely injured, in his letter to The New York Times: "Years ago, ignorant of the massacre, I hated this place, and places much like it. Two miles away, in an almost identical hamlet, Chip was blown into his hedge of bamboo. A mile or so east, Roy Arnold was shot dead, I was slightly wounded. A little farther east, a kid named McElhaney died. Just north of here, on a rocky hillside, another kid, named Slocum, lost his foot to a land mine. It goes on" (O'Brien).

Just from being in the war, O'Brien has a different perspective of Vietnam than the majority of the United States population ever will. He experienced the horrors and the jokes involved with being in a war. O'Brien may not be the most accurate on some areas that he wrote about, but he is accurate enough to inform the general population of how horrible this war was, and why he does not support war. Even though he has seen evil, he still believes that evil does not belong in this society. "Evil has no place, it seems, in our national mythology. We erase it. We use ellipses. We salute ourselves and take pride in America the White Knight, America the Lone Ranger, America’s sleek laser-guided weaponry beating up on Saddam and his legions of devils" (O'Brien). Overall, the nation does not want to know about the evil involved in war, so that it does not affect the normal lives of the general population. Without the knowledge of the evil involved in war, the world would not be a better place. Instead, everyone would be living a lie.

Works Cited

Larry R Johannessen. "Using a simulation and literature to teach the Vietnam War." The Social Studies 91.2 2000) 79-83.

Research Library Core, ProQuest. Web. 1 Nov. 2010.

Janis E Haswell. "THE CRAFT OF THE SHORT STORY IN RETELLING THE VIETNAM WAR: TIM O'BRIEN'S THE THINGS THEY CARRIED." The South Carolina Review 37.1 (2004) 94-109. Humanities Module, ProQuest. Web. 1 Nov. 2010.

O'Brien, Tim. "The Vietnam in Me. The New York Times. The New York Times, 02 OCT 1994. Web. 5 Nov 2010. http://www.nytimes.com.

"Vietnam War Facts." Vietnam War Info. Philadelphia Website Design, 2009. Web. 5 Nov 2010.
http://www.vietnam-war.info/facts/.

E-Portfolio

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Blog Posts

Reflective letter

Presentation

Monday, November 29, 2010

Live Essay