The movie I have picked to review is the movie “Brothers”; this movie chronicles two brothers. Sam is in Afghanistan on a tour of duty while his brother, Tommy, recently gets released from jail having served a sentence for armed robbery. Sam is married to Grace and they have two young daughters together. While in Afghanistan, Sam’s plane is shot down and he is presumed dead however, the reality is he was taken by an Afghanistan war group and is held along with his comrade Joe Willis. Tommy moves in with Grace and the kids after hearing about Sam’s death, so he can help out around the house (and he also needs a place to stay after getting out of prison). In Afghanistan Sam is forced to kill Joe Willis with a lead pipe if he wants to live, and shortly after Joe Willis’ death, the American military comes and frees Sam. Sam is a changed man after this and returns home paranoid, he thinks Tommy and Grace have been sleeping together. He has symptoms of PTSD from the war and also exhibited symptoms of OCD and paranoia. While questioning Grace about her false infidelities, Sam ends up destroying to newly remodelled kitchen Tommy has made and pulls a gun to kill Tommy. The police show up and Sam turns the gun on himself, before …show more content…
Tommy and Sam’s dad, Hank, played a larger role in this movie than expected; his ideologies shaped both his sons on what they can do with their lives. Hank was always pushing the army as a way to be a man and pay back your country, and because Tommy didn’t adhere to this ideology, he became the scapegoat son. Hank’s pressure to be manly is what stopped Sam from getting any help for his PTSD, as his dad doesn’t want Sam in counselling or on medication because “Real men don’t need help” (Jim Sheridan,
Gary Paulsen shows how war changes a person when he is describing the scene where after one major battle Charlie’s friend gets a direct hit it the stomach. Charlie tries assuring his friend that he will be alright, but Charlie knows that his friend is long gone. Nelson states that belly wounds never get picked up and that they are left there with a little water. Charlie assists Nelson in a disguised suicide. When Charlie turns around and starts walking he hears the gunshot. At this point Charlie starts crying. This is an important event because Charlie barely even knew the boy and he rarely cries. The giddy, mama’s boy from Minnesota has been through
that you cant pick out but know that they are there. You can see the
The heart wrenching tale of Jason Poole is an evident picture of the lost potentials of all the heavily injured veterans who came back to an entirely different “home”. Grady shows us that life as a veteran, who has put their life on the line to protect their country, after coming home is like having to start from scratch. “‘Jason was definitely a ladies’ man’, said Zillah Hodgkins, who had been a friend for nine years.” (5, Grady) Grady utilizes this quote by previously showing us the current state of
Henry Fosdick once said, “The tragedy of war is that it uses man’s best to do man’s worst.” In “The Red Convertible” by Louis Erdrich, there is a conflict amongst two brothers, Henry and Lyman as ones awareness towards reality is shifted upon the return of the Vietnam War. Henry’s experience fighting in the Vietnam War is the responsibility for the unexpected aftermath that affects their brotherhood. The event of Henry fighting in the war through fears, emotions and horrors that he encounters is the source of his “Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome [PTSD].” It has shaped his own perception of reality and his relationship with his brother Lyman and the strong bond that they had shared.
As the reader can distinguish throughout the book, both men went in completely different paths after starting in the same position. The difference between both of their stories is the author’s positive role model and the other effects of the military academy. It does not have to specifically be the military academy to shape someone to be successful, but discipline and a father-like figure can make the difference. My father is fortunately in my life, and has shaped me into the person I am today. He has taught me numerous lessons that have gotten me to this point in my life. I am privileged enough to also have close successful cousins who often give me advice on how to become as successful as they are. With the help of a positive role model and a positive environment, the ability to become a good person, as well as successful can be obtained.
The violent nature that the soldiers acquired during their tour in Vietnam is one of O'Brien's predominant themes in his novel. By consciously selecting very descriptive details that reveal the drastic change in manner within the men, O'Brien creates within the reader an understanding of the effects of war on its participants. One of the soldiers, "Norman Bowler, otherwise a very gentle person, carried a Thumb. . .The Thumb was dark brown, rubbery to touch. . . It had been cut from a VC corpse, a boy of fifteen or sixteen"(O'Brien 13). Bowler had been a very good-natured person in civilian life, yet war makes him into a very hard-mannered, emotionally devoid soldier, carrying about a severed finger as a trophy, proud of his kill. The transformation shown through Bowler is an excellent indicator of the psychological and emotional change that most of the soldiers undergo. To bring an innocent young man from sensitive to apathetic, from caring to hateful, requires a great force; the war provides this force. However, frequently are the changes more drastic. A soldier named "Ted Lavender adopted an orphaned puppy. . .Azar strapped it to a Claymore antipersonnel mine and squeezed the firing device"(O'Brien 39). Azar has become demented; to kill a puppy that someone else has adopted is horrible. However, the infliction of violence has become the norm of behavior for these men; the fleeting moment of compassion shown by one man is instantly erased by another, setting order back within the group. O'Brien here shows a hint of sensitivity among the men to set up a startling contrast between the past and the present for these men. The effect produced on the reader by this contrast is one of horror; therefore fulfilling O'Brien's purpose, to convince the reader of war's severely negative effects.
The impact of the Vietnam War upon the soldiers who fought there was huge. The experience forever changed how they would think and act for the rest of their lives. One of the main reasons for this was there was little to no understanding by the soldiers as to why they were fighting this war. They felt they were killing innocent people, farmers, poor hard working people, women, and children were among their victims. Many of the returning soldiers could not fall back in to their old life styles. First they felt guilt for surviving many of their brothers in arms. Second they were haunted by the atrocities of war. Some soldiers could not go back to the mental state of peacetime. Then there were soldiers Tim O’Brien meant while in the war that he wrote the book “The Things They Carried,” that showed how important the role of story telling was to soldiers. The role of stories was important because it gave them an outlet and that outlet was needed both inside and outside the war in order to keep their metal state in check.
“In September 2005”, Van Dahlen created a nonprofit organization called Give an Hour, where she and other highly skilled psychologists work together for the common goal of providing free mental health care to military personnel and their loved ones (“About Us”). Slowly but surely, Van Dahlen has created this organization that has produced “volunteers capable of responding to both acute and chronic conditions” and she has had the honor and privilege to forever change the lives of our country’s protectors for the better (“Mission Statement”). Growing up, a young Barbara Van Dahlen always had an immense respect for our military, as the daughter of an injured World War II veteran. Occasionally, she would hear her father reminiscing about his days in the service and all of the battles and training that he participated in. However, she recalls that he would often excise the da...
The lifetime prevalence of PTSD in the general population is 6-8% and increases to 20-30% for victims of severe traumatic events (Desmedt et al., 2015). PTSD resulting from combat-related trauma is a popular topic discussed throughout the media and is commonly adapted into characters in movies and television. In this paper, post-traumatic stress disorder portrayed in the movie Brothers will be critiqued and compared to the neural correlates that underlie symptoms of the disorder in neuropsychological literature.
Being forced into a war he has no interest in, Tim O’brien recounts his time fighting in the vietnam war. Many of the soldiers there carried things deep to their hearts. Others carried fear, guilt, and despair of what they had done and what was to come. These physical things were a way these soldiers could cope with their feelings and try and stay sane during these times. “Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey.”(1) These letters were coping mechanisms for Jimmy and he read them when he needed comforting or just to read them to help him forget.
...g during the war. Tim O'Brien doesn't write about black and white of what is true and what is not, but of the gray fog in between. Even though each story is separate, they come together to express how stories rule our lives. What is written down in words is what others hear and is passed down. "What stories can do, I guess, is make things present…I can make myself feel again." His main purpose is to make a person feel something about what the characters are going though. It is not everyday when one comes home from war. The only way to preserve the memories are to write about them in a story. This novel may appear to be a simple story about a platoon of soldiers while in Vietnam. As the book progresses, the weight of the war starts to dwell on the reader. The powerful emotional content grows as the narrator gets more courage to talk about the horrors that occurred.
Standing out more than the other soldiers in his regiment Henry defines his bravery by many different points throughout his experiences. While Henry is just a boy, his self-image is shared very descriptively while Henry tells his mother that he is joining the army. His mother completely rejects his adult decisions of becoming a soldier, but his thoughts were like bricks that could not be moved. Assuring that Henry was not making any rash decisions that he would regret, his mother respects his ideas and allows him to pursue his goal. Henry’s mother shows that she will dignify his decisions, “She had then covered her face with the quilt. There was an end to the matter for that night.” (Crane 5). For Henry’s sake of becoming a man and increasing his self-image, his mother puts her worries aside and lets him go to war. Therefore, Henry, with his decisions of war continues to lack knowledge of reality. His adolescent mind cannot comprehend the horrific scenes of battle, in preparation, he must increase his life visually before he is encouraged to fight for his country. The soldiers in Henry’s regiment tell their stories of battle and how different it really is compared to Henry's life back home. “He was nobody; now he is suddenly special, and this is what he wants.”(Breslin 268) . As Henry continues to be told the stories of men dying, people suffering, and the conditions of war, Henry’s vision of war changes. By understanding how war really is, it enables Henry to become more of a man while he is preparing himself mentally for his first experience in battle. On the other hand, Henry is unaware of how the future will end up. The risks he will have to take and the struggles he will have to overcome in order survive in battle will reveal...
In the stories, The Things They Carried and How to Tell a True War Story, by Tim O’Brien, every character in the story has his own unique theme in the story. Some are simple like Ted Lavender, his theme is drugs cannot solve your problems, but other characters such as Rat Kiley and Lieutenant Jimmy Cross have much more deep themes, and the narrator of the story finds a new outlook on life in one of the worst places to be at this time. This story takes place during the Vietnam war, a war many American Soldiers have trouble admitting that they took place in. During this story this platoon of men come to terms with death, love, and depression. These men overcome adversity in Vietnam to rethink their life before the war and find new values in life
War is no child 's play, but unfortunately, we have had times in our past when the youth of our great nation had to defend it. Combat is not an easy for anyone; watching death, the constant ring of gunfire, the homesickness, fearing for your life, and witnessing bloodshed daily, this will begin to take its toll. The minds threshold for brutality can only handle so much and eventually will become sickened by these events. This sickness is called Post-traumatic stress disorder. As shown through the characters of The Things They Carried, soldiers of war may begin to show PTSD symptoms before the war is over, and may continue to fight the disorder after the war has ended.
...though people believe that, those on the home front have it just as a bad as the soldiers, because they have to deal with the responsibilities of their husbands, there is nothing that can compare to what these men have gone through. The war itself consumed them of their ideology of a happy life, and while some might have entered the war with the hope that they would soon return home, most men came to grips with the fact that they might never make it out alive. The biggest tragedy that follows the war is not the number of deaths and the damages done, it is the broken mindset derives from being at war. These men are all prime examples of the hardships of being out at war and the consequences, ideologies, and lifestyles that develop from it.