The Ghost Soldiers

"Getting shot should be an experience from which you can draw some small pride. I don't mean the macho stuff. All I mean is that you should be able to talk about it: the stiff thump of the bullet, like a fist, the way it knocks the air out of you and makes you cough, how the sound of the gunshot arrives about ten years later, and the dizzy feeling, the smell of yourself, the things you think about and say and so right afterward, the way your eyes focus on a tiny white peddle or a blade of grass and how you start thinking, Oh man, that's the last thing I'll ever see, that peddle, that blade of grass, which makes you want to cry.

Pride isn't the right word. I don't know the right word. All I know is, you shouldn't feel embarrassed. Humiliation shouldn't be a part of it."

I thought this was a powerful passage because what I believe he is trying to say is that people will have pride in you and that he should be feeling like them, but he isn't. He doesn't know how to describe how he is feeling but not like how he should be. He has feelings of embarrassment and humiliation, but he said in the book that, that should be apart of it.

How did bobby Jorgenson almost "kill" Tim O’Brien?

What do you see/do when you are afraid?

In the Field

     "When a man died, there had to be blame. Jimmy Cross understood this. You could blame the war. You could blame the idiots who made the war. You could blame Kiowa for going to it. You could blame the rain. You could blame the river. You could blame the field, the mud, the climate. You could blame the enemy. You could blame the mortar rounds. You could blame people who were too lazy to read a newspaper, who were bored by the daily body counts, who switched channels at the mention of politics. You could blame whole nations. You could blame God. You could blame the munitions makers or Karl Marx or a trick of fate or an old man in Omaha who forgot to vote."
     Like we talked about in class, it seemed like everyone felt the blame for Kiowa's death. In the beginning of the chapter all of the eighteen soldiers are looking for Kiowa's body together. I felt like these soldiers just wanted " to get it finished". They felt it was wrong to leave his body in the mud so they searched and searched until they found him. I feel like almost everyone felt guilty for Kiowa's death. What we can learn and remember is that something happens due to a series of events. It can't just be one solid situation that beomes the reason. There are usually many reasons or situations that lead to another situation.

Interpretive Questions
1) Did Tim O'Brien feel guilty for Norman Bowker's death? (Notes)
2) Why do bad things happen to good people?
3) Why didn't Jimmy Cross move the men away from the mud?


Harmony :)

Good Form Indeed

"It's time to be blunt. I'm forty-three years old, true, and I'm a writer now, and a long time ago I walked through Quang Ngai Province as a foot soldier. Almost everything else is invented."
I chose this for my favorite passage because I appreciate bluntness and having to re-read something to fully understand it. Getting someone to feel what you were feeling through words is something that isn't the easiest thing in the world to do; and that this book is filled with those kind of stories is interesting to me. In this short chapter he gave us two things to remember, that there is a difference between "happening-truth" and "story-truth" which I feel needed to be pointed out as a disclaimer.

This story reveals that our human nature pushes us to make other people understand what we went through. Even if we have to bend the truth to get our point across as humans we starve for understanding.

My two questions for today were:
1. What makes Tim forgive the new medic after he was shot the second time?
2. What did they call the field where Kiowa died?

3. What drives Tim O'Brien to write this book?

Nate McCready---In the Field

Favorite passage:
      "The filth seemed to erase identities, transforming the men into identical copies of a single solder, which was exactly how Jimmy Cross had been trained to treat them, as interchangeable units of command. it was difficult sometimes, but he tried to avoid that sort of thinking. He had no military ambitions. he preferred to view his men not as units but as human beings"(163-164).

   Considering this story and what had happened to Kiowa, I was sad for the characters and how it seemed impossible to put the blame on one person, even though every person admitted that it was all their fault. Relating to the quote that I had from above, Jimmy Cross was taught to look at each soldier as a soldier, and not necessarily as a person or human being to get attached to. However, it was in Jimmy's human nature to feel compassion and even responsibility if one of his men dies.

     First interpretive question (from the chapter "In the Field"): Who, if anyone, is entirely/partially responsible for Kiowa's death. Was anyone responsible?

     Second interpretive question (from chapter "Good Form): What is so different about story-truth, and happening-truth?

     Book interpretive question: Which character had the most character growth by the end of the story? Which had the least?

Domino Theory

The Domino Theory is that once communism controlled one place that it would create an affect of other countries around it falling to communism. This is the basis of the Vietnam war, to stop one country from turning other countries into communist countries by first stopping the leading communist country.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/vietnam2-domino-theory.htm 

Superstitions during the Vietnam War

Many American Soldiers throughtout time have had their own superstitions or use of good luck charms, these were both popular during the vietnam war as well. The most common good luck charm during this time, from my research was snapshots of family members and loved ones, but there were a multitude of others, including many that you would expect.



Rabbit tails, four-leafed clovers, Wedding or engagement rings although they could rarely be worn except on ones dog-tags and Religious symbols were also common.(Cross necklaces, Rosearies, Star of David etc.)

These things are significant because it was something they brought with them everywhere, when they barely had room for anything. They were objects soldiers held to keep their minds off the war when they needed to relax, something to come home to, Nam couldn't be all there was  

More suprising to me were some of the superstitions these men carried during the War. One I found interesting was the three strike rule. Lighting a third cigarette on the same match or zippo flame was considered extremely bad luck. Sometimes this was unavoidable because of weather conditions or time restraints. But when it happened, men would duck down, ready for someone nearby to be taken out by the enemy. Another source of misfortune was to talk about who would "get it next", and these discussions often ended in a fist fight.

DMZ!

     The DMZ of Vietnam stands for the Vietnameze Demilitarized Zone which means combat free area between two enemies in military terms. This was the dividing line between North Viatameze and South Vietnameze territory. It became a battleground. The DMZ runs along the Ben Hai River and is more than a hundered kilometers long. The agreement for this division was signed on July 21, 1954. The agreement is known as the Geneva Accords.
     The US military and the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) have built bases around this division trying to get soldiers and supplies around there. These bases are called McNamara Line. So after the war was over the division line lost it's significance. Today, tourists view the DMZ though. I bet it would be a neat place to see. This map shows were the DMZ is on the map!
     Today there is a DMZ between North and South Korea, Korean Demilitarized Zone. It cuts the Korean Peninsula in half. There are some incidents when people will cross over or take shots across the otherside, everytime ending in a failed mission. In 2010, North Korea shot two bullets over to South Korea's side and in return South Korea shot three at North Korea. Both sides are very protective and ready to fight in case the other side attempts anything.