The Illinois countryside was sweltering in July. The flat earth invited the harsh, dusty winds that hummed a lonely tune. The sky never took on a hue of blue but instead was always soaked in reddish yellow as if the sun was bleeding into it. There was a worn out house that stood wearily in the middle of a desolate plain. It wasn’t beautiful. The windows were covered in a veil of dry, brown dust, suggestive of its detachment from human contact for years. The roof had a gild of fading red paint that would have once looked pretty and bright. The uncleanness of the house paralleled the harsh surrounding environment that seemed to be engulfed in sporadic dust storms. The complete lack of rain in these godforsaken rural areas left the soil wrinkled with cracks of mud and sand. It wasn’t beautiful. Joe Callan was the perfect loner. Now sixty-five, he was living in that unsightly house. He owned a small barn nearby, which housed a few animals for personal sustenance. It was a quiet life, largely divorced from human contact. The only sound was of sleepy fowls and cattle. This sort of life, of course, did not suit him in the least. Callan was a war veteran who served in Vietnam. Like for most other soldiers who survived, Vietnam had changed him; it changed him to the core. Now, he was living alone in the house, trying his best to live the life of a cattle farmer. Of course, this was just a way of denying his past, rejecting who he had permanently become. The blood that he had shed penetrated to his soul; he just knew that he already had a one-way ticket to hell. All this peace and quiet was but a moment’s delusion that afforded him a short escape from the nightmares that haunted him day after day. He desperately wished for some return of... ... middle of paper ... ... his pigs. He was no better than them. He reflected back at all the mistakes he had made. What kind of person he was. He stared at the sky. It was clear. The sun was setting and gave a bright beautiful red colour to the sky and kept the world going. He could faintly hear the police siren or perhaps it was ambulance. Callan could not believe he just shot down the kid. He was a worthless punk, sure, but he was just a kid! He was barely in his twenties. He didn’t know any better. He was young and stupid. He had all the potential to become someone useful to the world. He had family and friends who liked him. And now he was dead. And it was all too easy killing him. Callan held his rifle tight. Loaded another bullet he had in his pocket. He put the gun up to his temple. Then slowly, as life ticked away, he pulled the trigger. It was, as it always had been, too easy.
In the story “Home Soil” by Irene Zabytko, the reader is enlightened about a boy who was mentally and emotionally drained from the horrifying experiences of war. The father in the story knows exactly what the boy is going through, but he cannot help him, because everyone encounters his or her own recollection of war. “When their faces are contorted from sucking the cigarette, there is an unmistakable shadow of vulnerability and fear of living. That gesture and stance are more eloquent than the blood and guts war stories men spew over their beers” (Zabytko 492). The father, as a young man, was forced to reenact some of the same obligations, yet the father has learne...
Many people returned from World War II with disturbing images forever stuck in their heads. Others returned and went crazy due to the many hardships and terrors faced. The protagonist in Slaughter-House Five, Billy Pilgrim, has to deal with some of these things along with many other complications in his life. Slaughter House Five (1968), by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., is an anti-war novel about a man’s life before, after and during the time he spent fighting in World War II. While Billy is trying to escape from behind enemy lines, he is captured and imprisoned in a German slaughterhouse. The author tells of Billy’s terrible experiences there. After the war, Billy marries and goes to school to become an optometrist. During his schooling, he is put in a mental institution. As it is later explained in the novel, Billy was abducted by aliens and lived on their planet in their zoo for a period of time. Throughout this novel, Billy’s life doesn’t occur in a series of events. He also doesn’t have flashbacks of certain points in his life. Instead, he lives his life through time travel. His life jumps from many points in time including his experiences in the war, before the war, after the war and also on the planet of Tralfamadore. Throughout this novel, Billy Pilgrim’s and other humans’ views on war are simple: in essence, it’s one of the most destructive things that there is, but to the aliens on the planet of Tralfamadore, war is unimportant in the long run and should not be dwelled on.
Author Tim O’Brien in “How to Tell a True War Story” uses the physical and mental mindset of isolation in the Vietnam war to create a story with many literary devices that makes a captivating story. The author uses point of view, verbal irony, and the character Tim O’Brien to enhance his written experiences of the Vietnam War. This story teaches the reader that experiences that were lived by the reader can be altered by the mind to a certain extent, where they can be questioned as true or not. Perhaps at a sports game or in a heated situation such as a police chase or court case. Tim O’Brien’s experiences have captivated many readers, but are they true? Or just a product of insanity from war? Well, Tim O’Brien leaves that up to the reader to decide.
A soldier’s wounds from war are not always visible. Louise Erdrich, the author of The Red Convertible, presents a short story about two Native American brothers Henry and Lyman, who live in North Dakota on an Indian Reservation. Henry and Lyman purchased a Red Convertible and took a trip across the United States with the car. Upon their return, Henry is drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. When Henry finally came home, he was a different man. Like Henry, I have a nephew named Bobby, who serves in the United States Army. Bobby has seen more combat than most soldiers would like to see. The effects of war can be tough on a soldier when they are reintroduced back into society, just like Henry, my nephew had a tough time dealing with the effects of war.
“And then one morning, all alone, Mary Anne walked off into the mountains and did not come back” (110). Tim O’Brien’s short story “The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” presents an all-American girl who has been held back by social and behavioral norms – grasping for an identity she has been deprived the ability to develop. The water of the Song Tra Bong removes Mary Anne’s former notion of being as she, “stopped for a swim” (92). With her roles being erased Mary Anne becomes obsessed with the land and mystery of Vietnam and is allowed to discover herself. Through the lenses of Mark Fossie and the men in the Alpha Company, Mary Anne becomes an animal and is completely unrecognizable by the end of the story. Mary Anne, however, states she is happy and self-aware. The men of the Alpha Company argue for virtue in that Mary Anne was “gone” (107) and that what she was becoming “was dangerous… ready for the kill” (112). They did not want to accept a woman becoming something different from what women always were. In “How Tell to a True War Story” we are told that a true war story “does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior” (65). Mary Anne did not truly become ‘dark’, because to her this is not a story about war; this is a story about a woman attempting to overcome gender roles and the inability of men to accept it.
There are very few times when a person goes through an experience that changes the way he or she thinks about themselves. Drastic things like war, deaths, and tragic incidents can change a person?s life and shape the way they live. In ?The Man I Killed,? Tim O?Brien describes his life changing event when he killed the Vietnamese soldier crossing his path when he was on duty. The reader learns that O?Brien is endlessly sorry for the poor soldier, whom he thoroughly describes in his mind. It is the first time he had ever killed, and it is known that O?Brien continues to remember the soldier throughout his entire life, making him change the way he thinks about himself as both a soldier and a human being. Mark Fossie realizes that life, especially his relationship with Mary Anne, is not as simple as he expected when Mary Anne takes a soldierly turn in Vietnam and turns out to not be the girl Mark had wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
Stories can save us. Each day we live our lives we are given the chance to believe and tell stories. In Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, we are able to get a more personal approach on the ways in which the soldiers coped with the unforgettable memories and images; that would be with them for the rest of their lives. No matter how tough these men were, they were not physically, mentally, or emotionally prepared for what the Vietnam War had in store for them. At the beginning, the narrator O’Brien says, “for the most part they carried themselves with poise, a kind of dignity” (20). After the war, the psychological burdens the men carried during the war continue to haunt them and define who they are. Those who survive carry guilt
...ust deal with similar pains. Through the authors of these stories, we gain a better sense of what soldiers go through and the connection war has on the psyche of these men. While it is true, and known, that the Vietnam War was bloody and many soldiers died in vain, it is often forgotten what occurred to those who returned home. We overlook what became of those men and of the pain they, and their families, were left coping with. Some were left with physical scars, a constant reminder of a horrible time in their lives, while some were left with emotional, and mental, scarring. The universal fact found in all soldiers is the dramatic transformation they all undergo. No longer do any of these men have a chance to create their own identity, or continue with the aspirations they once held as young men. They become, and will forever be, soldiers of the Vietnam War.
The “Man I Killed” takes us into the Vietnam War and tell us about a soldiers first time of killing another individual. The author describes a Viet Cong soldier that he has killed, using vivid, physical detail with clear descriptions of the dead mans’ fatal wounds. O'Brien envisions the biography of this man and envisions the individual history of the dead Vietnamese soldier starting with his birthplace moving through his life, and finished with him enrolling in the Vietnamese Army. O'Brien also describes some of the dead soldiers’ hopes and dreams. The author uses this history in an attempt to make the dead man more realistic to the reader
Envision a man that sat on a grimy concrete block, as nightfall began to crystallize before his eyes. His hair, charcoal-grey, was matted and straggly, as if he had ever known the pleasure of a hot shower or comb except when he was in the war. His once shimmering brown eyes were know hollow and cold. His eyes, that were once filled with the upmost blissfulness, now sagged like the bulky bags underneath his eyes, consumed by the loneliness and despair he felt for himself, for his lack of purpose in life. This man did not bare a smile, only crinkles where one used to be. He wore his only faded blue jacket with a tan shirt tucked underneath it. He wore cruddy worn out jeans that barely seized his thin waist and boney legs. His only pair of shoes that were once white, we're now grungy. His finger nails were bitten and dirty. This man, like many other homeless veterans, struggle everyday of their lives.
cold, harsh, wintry days, when my brothers and sister and I trudged home from school burdened down by the silence and frigidity of our long trek from the main road, down the hill to our shabby-looking house. More rundown than any of our classmates’ houses. In winter my mother’s riotous flowers would be absent, and the shack stood revealed for what it was. A gray, decaying...
Fighting the Vietnam War dramatically changed the lives of everyone even remotely involved, especially the brave individuals actually fighting amidst the terror. One of the first things concerned when reading these war stories was the detail given in each case. Quotes and other specific pieces of information are given in each occurrence yet these stories were collected in 1981, over ten years following the brutal war. This definitely shows the magnitude of the war’s impact on these servicemen. These men, along with every other individual involved, went through a dramatic experience that will forever haunt their lives. Their minds are filled with scenes of exploding buildings, rape, cold-blooded killing, and bodies that resemble Swiss cheese.
...ome the dream of attainment slowly became a nightmare. His house has been abandoned, it is empty and dark, the entryway or doors are locked. The sign of age, rust comes off in his hands. His body is cold, and he has deteriorated physically & emotionally. He is weathered just like his house and life. He is damaged poor, homeless, and the abandoned one.
...ar, O’Brien was able to turn his pain into a life purpose by immortalizing his loved ones. On the other hand, Bowker was not able to cope and resorted to taking his own life. In high-pressure environments such as war, instinct is the dominating force behind one’s actions. It is something inherent and extremely difficult to change for it corresponds with the person’s deepest desires. Therefore, instinctive reactions are accurate portrayals of a person’s inner identity and character. The cases of Bowker and O’Brien prove that it is the discovery of oneself during war, and not war itself, that has a profound impact on the human spirit.
The sunset was not spectacular that day. The vivid ruby and tangerine streaks that so often caressed the blue brow of the sky were sleeping, hidden behind the heavy mists. There are some days when the sunlight seems to dance, to weave and frolic with tongues of fire between the blades of grass. Not on that day. That evening, the yellow light was sickly. It diffused softly through the gray curtains with a shrouded light that just failed to illuminate. High up in the treetops, the leaves swayed, but on the ground, the grass was silent, limp and unmoving. The sun set and the earth waited.