Vietnam is known as, “America’s Lost War,” because America did not achieve the end goal of a completely democratic country. Protests and riots broke out over the controversy of sending American soldiers to fight and as a result, the veterans did not receive much recognition when they returned home. However it made a pathway for 21st century warfare. On the occasion of the Iraq war, K.T. Mcfarland, the Deputy National Security Advisor for the United States of America, proposed a statement about the purpose of American soldiers after meeting with political officials from Israel. In her address delivered four years ago, she stated, “One of the lessons of Vietnam, which we failed to heed in the Iraq war and the Afghanistan surge, is that before …show more content…
The firm grasp of war in the chapter, On the Rainy River, puts O’Brien at a “paralysis (O’Brien, 54),” he did not want to fight and it embarrassed him. As compared to the World War One poem by Wilfred Owen, soldiers are “bent double like old beggars under sacks (Owen, stanza 1).” barely able to move and have little strength that makes them trudge along in muck. O'Brien gave himself to the war despite his fantasy about escaping to Canada, despite working for Elroy to hide from the call of war. He gave in to it because of the strong, intense pressure he felt and pressure he still feels now he tells the reader in chapter 9. He was put at a crossroad and plunged into the world of war of what Owen describes as being “ecstasy of fumbling (Owen, Stanza One).” The consequence for resistance is difficult as O’Brien deals with the man he killed later on. An aching nightmare that parallels to the poem’s descriptive, gruesome imagery, “he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning, (Owen, Stanza 3). An image O’ Brien cannot escape and cannot cope with. To escape his nightmares is impossible, as demonstrated in the chapter The Man I killed, because he put himself in the place of the soldier, to him, “He was both a citizen and a soldier (O’Brien, 119).” There is no escaping morality in war but sometimes morality is
The aftermath — No More Vietnams — is well-covered in Appy’s work. The No More Vietnam mantra is usually presented as avoiding quagmires, focusing on quick, sharp wins. Instead, Appy shows politicians have manipulated No More Vietnams into meaning greater secrecy (think Central America in the 1980’s), more over-the-top justifications (“You don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud”) and an emphasis on keeping American deaths inside the acceptable limits of the day to tamp down any public anti-war sentiment.
Lawrence’s purpose in writing this book was concise and to the point. In recent history, due to the fall of the Soviet bloc, new information has been made available for use in Vietnam. As stated in the introduction, “This book aims to take account of this new scholarship in a brief, accessible narrative of the Vietnam War… It places the war within the long flow of Vietnamese history and then captures the goals and experiences of various governments that became deeply embroiled in the country during the second half of the twentieth century” (Lawrence, 3.) This study is not only about the American government and how they were involved in the Vietnam conflict, but highlights other such countries as France, China, and the Soviet Union. Lawrence goes on to say that one of his major goals in writing this book is to examine the American role in Vietnam within an international context (Lawrence, 4.) Again, this goes to show that the major purpose of Lawrence’s study included not only ...
Tim O’Brien’s book, The Things They Carried, portrays stories of the Vietnam War. Though not one hundred percent accurate, the stories portray important historical events. The Things They Carried recovers Vietnam War history and portrays situations the American soldiers faced. The United States government represents a political power effect during the Vietnam War. The U. S. enters the war to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam. The U.S. government felt if communism spreads to South Vietnam, then it will spread elsewhere. Many Americans disapproved of their country’s involvement. Men traveled across the border to avoid the draft. The powerful United States government made the decision to enter the war, despite many Americans’ opposition. O’Brien’s The Things They Carried applies New Historicism elements, including Vietnam history recovery and the political power of the United States that affected history.
In the early stages of the story O’Brien is faced with a “moral emergency”, though the draft letter sent to him in the early summer of 1968 stirred up many more feelings than that of just a moral nature. O’Brien experienced unease within his conscience about how this particular war had no “imperative of its cause”; people were dying for reasons unknown. This news also hit him in a deeply emotional way; he became quite livid with the entire idea of
Life can bring unexpected events that individuals might not be prepared to confront. This was the case of O’Brien in the story, “On the Rainy River” from the book The Things They Carried. As an author and character O’Brien describes his experiences about the Vietnam War. In the story, he faces the conflict of whether he should or should not go to war after being drafted. He could not imagine how tough fighting must be, without knowing how to fight, and the reason for such a war. In addition, O’Brien is terrified of the idea of leaving his family, friends and everything he loves behind. He decides to run away from his responsibility with the society. However, a feeling of shame and embarrassment makes him go to war. O’Brien considers himself a coward for doing something he does not agree with; on the other hand, thinking about the outcome of his decision makes him a brave man. Therefore, an individual that considers the consequences of his acts is nobler than a war hero.
...otional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing—these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight" (“Carried” 23). O’Brien showed the effect that emotional longings have on one’s thoughts & feelings. Though he tells that his novel is about story-truth, which is not about war and do not have a moral; but one can understand that O’Brien’s fiction is a message against forcing young people into war. By true-made up stories; the author shows the transformation of one’s emotional state through war and its long-lasting impact. O’Brien’s stories prove that seen physical burdens emphasize the unseen emotional burden: physical burden can be expressed in words, but emotional burden, changes that are encouraged by our surroundings cannot be expressed in words- thus they always remain untrue yet true.
It is understandable that some Americans strongly opposed the United States getting involved in the Vietnam War. It had not been a long time since the end of World War II and simply put, most Americans were tired of fighting. Mark Atwood Lawrence is one of the people who opposed our involvement in the Vietnam War. In his essay, “Vietnam: A Mistake of Western Alliance”, Lawrence argues that the Vietnam War was unnecessary and that it went against our democratic policies, but that there were a lot of things that influenced our involvement.
Trotting tirelessly through various terrains, witnessing death and other atrocities at every corner, and slowly losing oneself in the process is the life of a soldier. The poem "Dedicated to the Infantryman" by Gary McDonough accurately and thoroughly depicts this. Although it is vague and does not directly mention any one soldier, it is an overarching poem which can apply to the life of a soldier overall. Especially, it relates to the death of Kiowa and the ramifications this loss has on Norman Bowker from the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.
This highlights the guilt he is feeling for killing the young man and he basically talks about himself when he is making up this person’s life story because O’Brien says "the young man would not have wanted to be a soldier" and in the chapter ‘on a rainy river’ he tells us that he never wanted to go to war and almost fled to Canada. Specifically, O 'Brien views this man as himself, as what he will transform into if incidentally he loses his life in war. In his fantasy of what the young man’s life was like he finds similarities, and these similarities are not wanting to be in war and the fear of shame if you don’t go to war which was a lose lose
Satire is a balanced combination of sarcasm, irony, humor, and rhetorical devices that all focus on mocking or ridiculing certain works. In “The War Prayer” by Mark Twain and “The Battle of the Ants” by Henry David Thoreau, both short works satire the glorification of war. In comparison, “The War Prayer” revolves around jingoism by displaying traces of shock, hyperbole and a juxtaposing tone; whereas “The Battle of the Ants” exhibits a historical background through sarcasm, verisimilitude, and a mock-heroic tone.
The detailed descriptions of the dead man’s body show the terrible costs of the war in a physical aspect. O’Brien’s guilt almost takes on its own rhythm in the repetition of ideas, phrases, and observations about the man’s body. Some of the ideas here, especially the notion of the victim being a “slim, young, dainty man,” help emphasize O’Brien’s fixation on the effects of his action—that he killed someone who was innocent and not meant to be fighting in the war. At the same time, his focus on these physical characteristics, rather than on his own feelings, betrays his attempt to keep some distance in order to dull the pain. The long, unending sentences force the reader to read the deta...
they do not want to go and fight for England as it "is looking and
In the fourth stanza of “Recalling War”, the war is over and the war has turn earth to
World War One has influenced many poets to write their experiences of war. Dulce et Decorum est, by Wilfred Owen, is a poem about the horrid experiences soldiers went through while they were at war. Owen describes the atrocity of a gas attack and the painful mental anguish that was shown on the soldiers face. Rupert Brook’s, The Soldier, describes the patriotism that supposedly accompanies war. His view of war is that dying for your country is the most honorable act of man. The poems have contrary attitudes towards the life of a soldier and this is shown through poetic devices such as personification and imagery.
Owen uses several similes to deepen our appreciation of the poem. They create an image of young soldiers walking with arched backs, their clothes tattered and torn, much like an old beggar. They also show how the soldiers are crippled, both mentally and physically, and are burdened by the weight of the war. Owen also seems to be reluctant to introduce him and his fellow soldiers. We are acquainted with simile upon simile before we are introduced to the mysterious ‘we’, the subjects of the poem. The similes show that it is almost as if Owen believes the reader will be unable to imagine what war is really like. Owen seems to have searched for images the reader will actually understand, as if he is convinced they...