Lt. Colonel Jay R. Jensen's "Six Years In Hell"
The book I have chosen to read for this review is one entitled
"SIX YEARS IN HELL." It is a book written by one Lt. Colonel Jay R. Jensen in a
first person manor. He was a military pilot who flew over Vietnam and was
captured and taken as a POW. This book covers his time in the military before
hand describing the daily procedures etc. of his military life.
The author graduated from Jordan High School in Sandy, Utah in
1949. He then joined The Utah Air National Guard during the Korean war. Mr.
Jensen was on active duty for 20 months, after which he attended Brigham Young
University. He graduated with a B.S. degree in Accounting and majors in Banking
and Finance. After college he obtained the rank of cadet Colonel in the Air
Force ROTC. Lt. Colonel Jensen was well decorated after his retirement in 1978
that concluded 28 years of service. His decorations included: Two Silver Stars,
Legion of Merit, Bronze Star with V for Valor, Air Medal, two Purple Hearts,
Presidential Unit Citation, Air Force Outstanding Unit Award with two Oak Leaf
Clusters, POW Medal, Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal with Oak
Leaf Cluster, Vietnam Service Medal with 14 Bronze Campaign Medals, Air Force
Longevity Award (for over 24 years), Armed Forces Reserve Medal with Hour Glass
Device (for 20 years), Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon, Vietnam Cross for
Gallantry with Device, and Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal. All these
decorations and the time spent in the military I believe more than present his
qualifications for writing this book.
This book that he was so qualified to write I must bend to say
was rather well written. The author took time to explain everything
individually and even those things that seem quite trivial were given careful
explanation. If there was something that the author felt was not apparent or
was not to be taken at face value he footnoted it at the bottom of the page.
These footnotes were especially helpful for those of us readers who may not be
that "militarily inclined." I particularly enjoyed the story of Roscoe the
base's mascot which was probably one of the longest examples of footnoting
throughout the book.
The book is written from the perspective of the author at the
time he experienced it. The descriptions are so well written that one can
almost see or relate to what is being described, but as time progresses you can
tell the author's moods change as the mode of descriptions differs.
Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. Sculley Bradley, Richard Beatty, and E. Hudson Long Eds. New York: W.W. Norton, 1962.
Black Hearts tells the story of a few bad soldiers from 1st platoon, Bravo company of the 1-502nd Infantry Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division, that was plagued with toxic leadership and lack of control over soldiers. The book documents the events that led to the ultimate demise of the soldiers involved in the horrific incident that occurred on March 12, 2006. Four soldiers were arrested in the brutal murder of an Iraqi family, which was a result of the lack of leadership and structure these soldiers received. Black Hearts takes a deep look into what happened to this troubled platoon and what unfortunate events occurred during their deployment.
A true war story blurs the line between fact and fiction, where it is neither true nor false at the same time. What is true and what is not depends on how much you believe it to be. In the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story” from the novel “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, the author provides various definitions to how the validity of a war story can be judged. The entire chapter is a collection of definitions that describe the various truths to what a true war story is. Unlike O’Brien, who is a novelist and storyteller, David Finkel, the author of “The Good Soldiers”, is a journalist whose job is to report the facts. Yet in the selection that we read, chapter nine, Finkel uses the convention of storytelling, which relies heavily on the stories the combat troops tell each other or him personally. Finkel attempts to give an unbiased view of the Iraq war through the stories of the soldiers but in doing so, Finkel forfeits the use of his own experiences and his own opinions. From O’Brien’s views on what a true war story is combined with my own definitions, I believe that Finkel provides a certain truth to his war stories but not the entire truth.
Mahoney, Harry Thayer, and Marjorie Locke Mahoney. Gallantry in action: a biographic dictionary of espionage in the American Revolutionary War. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1999.
Earl J. Hess, The Union Soldier in Battle, (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1997).
On August 28, 1963 Dr. King made his way to Washington Mall from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial to commit his speech to his fellow Americans. Dr. King commands his speech during an ironic period time of America history. African-Americans were frowned upon by the Caucasian. Not only the African-American had a difficult time fitting in, also Asians and Hispanics were discriminated and surrogated from the Caucasian population. The heartless Caucasian police officers would verbally command their racists’ hounds on the desperate but yet innocent African-American young adults and children. The inhuman Caucasian fire department used their almighty water hose on the nonviolent protesters, only because the protesters’ skins were darker than theirs.
Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. Intro. Pascal Covici, Jr. NY: Penguin Books, 1985.
Dr. King brilliantly weaves so many subtleties into such a relatively short speech that almost 50 years later it still must be analyzed to no end. Dr. King was a southern Baptist preacher before he was sucked into the leading role of the civil rights movement, I’m sure that had a great effect on his ability to give a speech. Dr. King knew just what to say, when to say it, and how to say it. From this we can see Dr. King’s lasting effect, and the fact that although we have come far in the area of civil rights, we still have a long way to go and it will be Dr. King’s timeless words that usher us into a new era of prosperity and brotherhood.
DeMyers, Sandra. "Intro to the Hero's Journey." Loyno.edu. Northshore High School, 21 June 2000. Web. 26 Nov. 2013.
Throughout his speech, King utilizes language to target whites for their sadistic behavior toward the blacks, when they were at the forefront of the country, even in its infant stages. The innocent, young Negro boy and girl know what African Americans did for the United
...s sometimes they have a very set meaning to what that story is supposed to be about and sometimes they don’t but in almost every case you can read further into what they are saying by just paying attention to how it makes you feel as you read it.
Dr. King uses imagery in his writing that makes the audience visualize what he has seen. He knows that the white moderates have strong family values, so he reaches out to them by providing stories about children. There is one story about a little girl who has just seen an ad on television and when she asks her father if she can go, he has to look his daughter in the eye and tell her that ?Funtown is closed to colored children?(King 561). He then goes on to explain about how that forces that young child to grow up to feel inferior and to begin to hate because she has darker skin than the other children do. Then there is another story about the family taking a cross-country vacation and having to ??sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile?? because motels would not accept colored people (King 561). It ...
Tim O'Brien is confused about the Vietnam War. He is getting drafted into it, but is also protesting it. He gets to boot camp and finds it very difficult to know that he is going off to a country far away from home and fighting a war that he didn't believe was morally right. Before O'Brien gets to Vietnam he visits a military Chaplin about his problem with the war. "O'Brien I am really surprised to hear this. You're a good kid but you are betraying you country when you say these things"(60). This says a lot about O'Brien's views on the Vietnam War. In the reading of the book, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Tim O'Brien explains his struggles in boot camp and when he is a foot soldier in Vietnam.
In his speech, he proclaimed a free and better nation of equality and that both races, the blacks and the whites, should join together to achieve common ground and to support each other instead of fighting against one another. King’s vision is that all people should be judged by their “personality and character and not by their color of skin”(‘I Have a Dream”). All points he made in his speech were so strong that lots of people were interested in his thoughts. He dreamed of a land where the blacks could vote and have a reason to vote and where every citizen would be treated the same and with the same justice. He felt that all Americans should be equal and that they should forget about injustice and segregation. He wanted America to know what the problems were and wanted to point out the way to resolve these problems.
War forces young soldiers to grow up quickly. In Stephen Crane’s Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage, Henry Fleming is no exception. He is faced with the hard reality of war and this forces him to readjust his romantic beliefs about war. Through the novel, the reader can trace the growth and development of Henry through these four stages: (1) romanticizing war and the heroic role each soldier plays, (2) facing the realities of war, (3) lying to himself to maintain his self-importance, and (4) realistic awareness of his abilities and place in life. Through Henry’s experiences in his path to self-discovery, he is strongly affected by events that help shape his ideology of war, death, courage, and manhood. The romantic ideologies will be replaced with a more realistic representation.