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Watching Her Grow

My favorite charecter to follow in this entire novel has been Sasha. She is so interesting and exciting to me because she has been through so many different ways of living throughout her entire life and those experiences have shaped such a unique and strong person. These last two stories especially showed the hard times Sasha has come from, starting from such an early age. Her Uncle Teddy explained his summer living with Sasha and both of her biological parents and how dysfuntional their relationship had been, but it reminded me as myself and similar situations I had faced at such a young age especially when Ted explained how grown up Sasha seemed to be when he could tell that she was purposely ignoring the hectic situations happening in the house. 

These rough home situations as a child did not play out well for Sasha orginally though because as most children do when they feel as though their parents have not lived up to the proper parental standards, she rebelled. But Sasha rebelled to an insane extent, running off to Asia with a drummer named Wade and traveling alone all the way to Naples is not a normal teenager's reaction to a complicated childhood. All of these mistakes and reckless living caught up to Sasha though when she came to college and tried to surround herself with people that she thought would keep her out of trouble, which is why she was attracted to Rob on their first day of freshmen orientation. 

Sasha's hectic adolescense chastened her to be the responsible college student who would be dissapointed with her friends when they did E at clubs and were irresponsible, these lessons taught her to be a responsible student and person because she didn't want to dissapoint her parents who she was sure were watching her. These responsible decisions brought her to work under Bennie's wing and into her marriage with two children where she lived a responsible life that nobody would have expected of her if they had seen her in Naples. 

F-Bombs and Mental Bombs

In his essay 9/11: The View From the Midwest (what an uncreative title), published in Rolling Stone on October 25, 2001, David Foster Wallace describes his experiences during a visit to Bloomington, Illinois, from September eleventh-thirteenth. He begins his story on Wednesday, September 12th - exactly seven years later he would take his own life - beginning with the fascinating observation that, less than twenty-four hours after the imfamous 9/11 attacks, almost every home and business place in Bloomington displayed a flag. What's even more fascinating is the peer pressure that Wallace experienced upon realizing the realization of this phenomenon, which led to a desperate and pity-enducing mission to find a flag, and eventually the creation of a construction paper flag.

Source: http://viz.cwrl.utexas.edu/files/dfwc-podium-edrantscom.jpg. 

The second part of Wallace's essay describes his experiences on 9/11. What is so brilliant about Wallace's writing is his ability to create an essay that is so creative, complex, and original all in one. It is not merely an account of watching the attacks from a television in a living room amongst praying elderly women; it is also a critical look at the lifestyles of Bloomington residents, and ends with Wallace questioning his lifestyle choices. I love that he chose not only to describe the events of that day, but presented profound questions and ideas in his thought process throughout his visit. 

I also found his writing style rather fascinating. His writing sounds more like a conversation he would have with a friend than an article, abundant with swears and personal opinions, especially regarding President Geroge W. Bush. In other words, this article definitely would not appear in The Wall Street Journal. In his brutally honest descriptions of people, I often wondered if these people read this article, and if he cared. I wish I was less self conscious about speaking my feelings, and I continue to question to what extent one should speak / write puplicly one's opinions of others. I wondered if this writing style was used purposefully to fit the style of Rolling Stone, or if this is just another side of Wallace, as his 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College is swear-free, and features a drastically different style. 

I've only just found out about Wallace, but I'm starting to conclude that his writing often features somber themes that often encourage deep personal reflections. 

A Fragmented Story

In the story titled “Spin,” I think it’s interesting how O'Brien offers us a series of fragmented scenes, like verbal snapshots, as a way to comment on the act of memory and specifically on the act of remembering the Vietnam War. He presents the war as an event marked by the disorder of anti-war demonstration and military mismanagement. I believe this fragmented expression, the approach used in this chapter and in the novel over all, is the message. The nature of memory is fragmentary; people do not tend to remember an event in a narrative beginning-to-end sort of way. Rather, O'Brien suggests that "what sticks to memory, often, are those odd little fragments that have no beginning and no end."

We see this fragmentation when O’Brien hops between a wide variety of stories—the Vietnamese guide, Mitchell Sanders mailing his lice, Ted Lavender adopting a puppy—within the space of few pages. It’s also interesting to note that the novel is not marked by continuity in which one chapter flows logically into the next. O'Brien does not set the path of memory and remembering as one that can be traversed easily. War, and by extension memory of war and storytelling about war, is not orderly, and its meaning can’t be captured with ordinary storytelling.

Breathe In, Dead Soldier. Breathe Out.

First off, I really really like this book. My favorite book of the year hands down.

I mean, yes, my squeamishness comes out in full force during many stories in this book (Ted Lavender, anyone? Curt Lemon? BABY BUFFALO?) but still. I can feel this book.

And I don't mean "feel it" like "Hey man, I totally feel you", but more as if there is a tangible presence to this book, and it's taken up residence in my lungs.

Breathe in, Vietnam. Sunshine demise and baby buffalo and blood in my mouth.

Breathe out, Tim O'Brian. 43 years old, a writer who still breathes in as a soldier and out as a father who tells his nine-year-old daughter that of course he didn't kill anyone.

Breathe out breath out breathe out.

And alright, yes, I admit I might have read ahead. A little. Or a lot, maybe: I finished the book.

And I can only think "Well damn."

Because what about all the soldiers we're still sending out?

Are they pulling their brothers out of trees, peeling them off the dusty, explosion-riddled road, digging them out of a sloppy, mushy shitfield in the pouring rain?

Probably.

Are there men out there like Tim O'Brian, who don't really want to fight but they do it anyway, because they'd feel like they were betraying everyone they know but themselves if they didn't?

Absolutely. 

I've been reading a lot of war stories lately, and I gotta tell you, I cry. At all of them. Sob my eyes out like there is no longer any rainbows or unicorns or happiness in the world. None.

I cry like a five year old who has just been informed that Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny have all been heartlessly massacred.

And I wonder what would happen if the head honchos, the men and women who start the war but send others to end it, would they feel like a different decision is in order if they read one of these books?

Do you think maybe, that if people who felt like war was necessary to solve whatever problem they have, do you think if someone made them read these war novels, this book, The Things They Carried, would we maybe get somewhere towards convincing the world just what a stupid idea it is to go out and shoot at people, and get shot at, and die, and watch your friends die, ( "Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast, but it's a killer grenade and everybody dies anyway. Before they die, though, one of the dead guys says, "The fuck you do that for?" and the jumper says, "Story of my life, man," and the other guy starts to smile but he's dead.")...

Will anyone care at all? Will anyone try their damndest to make a dead soldier breathe again?

 

Will anyone listen to the breathing of a dead soldier? 

How Do You Explain to a Town That You're Not a Child Molester?

Witch Hunt is a documentary narrated and produced by Sean Penn about Bakersfield, California, where dozens of innocent men and women were convicted of child molestation in a mass communal hysteria. The men and women were arrested with little or no evidence, and testimonies against them were from the neighborhood children, sometimes their own children. The documentary follows John Stoll, Jeff Modahl, the Kniffens, the Pitts, and a few other couples that were unjustly arrested starting in 1985.

Twenty years later, as the story unfolds, the accused spend their time in jail. The children, who were all 6 or 7 years old when they accused the adults, begin to come forward about what really happened. The children, most now young adults, admitted that improper questioning techniques were used by the interrogators and social workers, and that they had been coerced into accusing the adults with false testimonies. This did not help the people in jail however. It took a lot of intervention from the California Innocence Project for John Stoll’s charges to be reversed. The release of previously withheld evidence, such as the children’s medical examination records, led to the release of others. No charges were ever brought against the officials who coerced the children.

Watching this documentary reminded me a lot of The Crucible. In both cases, others whose validity can definitely be questioned accuse innocent people, but the accused are powerless against the officials. Both in 1692 and 1985, the men and women were jailed with little or questionable evidence, although in Salem many innocent people died. Also, in Salem the witches were accused of being involved with the devil, and in Bakersfield, there were even satanic allegations.

In both cases, I think the town becoming hysteric fueled the accusations. In the documentary, Jackie Cummings said, “there are a lot of conservative people here, and they all want to feel that they’re safe.” I think this is very similar to Salem, where the town became very frightened and some started convicting people because they were scared for their safety. As Marcella Pitts said, “how do you sit down and explain to a whole town…” that you aren’t a child molester? That you aren’t a witch? Standing up to a town is very difficult, and in both cases proved nearly impossible. Also, the authorities that were stuck in their role as the protector of the towns became blind to the innocence of people and exacerbated this hysteria in the towns. I can’t even imagine what how I would react if I were falsely accused of such a serious crime.

The Things They Carried: Gold vs. A Story

Watching the Three Kings for the first time, I thought it was very nicely done. For someone like me, who has never experienced a war firsthand, I think the movie portrayed a very realistic story of the events during war. I feel like the movie was able to convey the suspense and danger and setting of a war well.

The whole motive of the 'secret mission' that George Clooney was leading was to steal the gold worth millions of dollars and keep it for themselves. And so this group of men set off in search of their treasure. I especially liked how at the beginning of their drive towards the bunker, there was Beach Boys music playing on the radio. The music emphasized the relaxed state and sense of ease that the soldiers had. They had no idea about the dangers that lay ahead and the throuble they were getting into.

Now once they had the gold and were ready to take off, George Clooney decides that they should try to save the people as well. Just like how The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien says that the soldiers had many different things to carry, in this case what these soldiers carried started with eagerness for riches, to gold, to the responsibility of the rebels' safety.

Jumping to the end of the movie, to where the border of freedom for the rebels was, the thing the soldiers carried changed again. Although they still did have responsibility of the rebels, they now carried a story. They carried a war story that was of much more importance than the gold now. Their story was of the journey of the the rebels and that the right thing to do was to let them cross the border. It was a story that provoked much emotion and sympathy for these people during the war which was able to do its job thanks to the reporter Adriana Cruz. And I think that this part showed how much a story is important and the meaning of freedom and teamwork.

O'Brien had also emphasized the importance of a story. Although he may not have agreed that this movie was a true war story, I think he would agree in that the movie was telling a good war story.Because what O'Briend and his book talked about was how the essence and meaning of the story was much more important than the actual facts. And I think that both the movie and the novel help to show the power and influence of war stories on the world.

Ted Lavender's Death

    Throughout the story in The Things They Carried, O'Brien lets us see the war from the soldiers' point of view. You get to see how the men interacted with each other, and how each person had special habits and superstitions. But what I thought was the most interesting was how Ted Lavender's death was repeated and emphasized over and over again, especially in the first chapter.

Here are some quotations about Ted Lavender's death all within the first story.

    "Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried tranquilizers until he was shot in the head outside the village of Than Khe in mid-April" (2).

 "Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried 34 rounds when he was shot and killed outside Than Khe" (6).

"Until he was shot, Ted Lavender carried the starlight scope..." (9)

    After mentioning it the first time, you would think the readers would understand that Ted Lavender died because he was shot. Maybe O'Brien was trying to emphasize this point because he wanted to people to understand what was at stake during the war. It could be that he wanted to make sure we knew that getting shot in the head was perfectly probable and possible. Or maybe it was just me that thought Ted Lavender's death was made into a big deal?

After the Veterans Die, the Memories Live On.

Against Kathleen O'Brien's ideas, about how her father wants to keep writing about the war is "...an obsession" or "that [he] should write about a little girl who finds a million dollars and spends it all on a Shetland pony" (34), I think it is important for everyone to record the times in history that we want to avoid and not see being replayed in the future.

I think my strong feeling towards this issue goes back to my camp years. Going to a Jewish sleepaway camp, every year they would bring in a different Holocaust survivor just to share their story. I seemed to feel sad and upset about the ages of the presenters and wondered, when they die, who will come to my camp every year and tell me their stories. Although this is part of my ten-year-old selfish self, that is something to strongly look at and think about. The thing about historical events, is that, although it might effect more people in the longrun, it only directly occurs to a group of people, at most 2 to 3 generations. When these generations die, hopefully their story still gets passed on, but as O'Brien makes us aware of in Spin, "Stories are for...when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story" (38).

Clearly as we see in any classic game of telephone, the story always slowly differs from person to person. so soon, "John went to the dance this weekend", turns into "Ron peed in his pants this weekend". Because of the always differening opinions and stories that people decide to tell, no one can REALLY tell the story as accurately as the person who first hand experienced it. Also, each person experiences the same event differently.

So please boys and girls, I'm asking you to URGE grandma, URGE grandpa. Write down our history. After all, isn't the best way to learn, to look at our mistakes in the past?

What Are Stories For?

Near the end of "Spin," one of the chapters in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, O'Brien considers why, many years later, he keeps writing stories about the Vietnam War -- instead of, as he daughter suggests, "about a little girl who finds a million dollars and spends it all on a Shetland pony" (34).

He considers why his stories are necessary:

Stories are for joining the past to the future.  Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are.  Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story (38).

I find this a simple yet profound idea.  Stories -- even though they are frequently fictional and about events we might never experience (whether we are the writer or the reader) -- order our lives.  They make sense of life. 

That's a paradox that's worth exploring -- and one that O'Brien will return to again and again.  How can something that's not true be the most truthful thing of all?