My Two Journal Choices

I have chosen these two journals:

- What do I carry?

- A Memorable Experience

How to tell a true war story

A true war story is never moral.

You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you.

You can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.

In any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen.

In many cases, a true war story cannot be believed.

In other cases you cant even tell a true war story.

You can tell a true war story by the way it never seems to end.

In a true war story, if there’s a moral at all, it’s like the thread that makes the cloth.

True war stories do not generalize.

A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe.

You could tell a true war story by the questions you ask.

Often in a true war story, there is not even a point, or else the point doesn’t hit you until twenty years later, in your sleep, and you wake up and shake your wife and start telling the story to her, except when you get to the end, you’ve forgotten the point again.

And in the end, of course, a true war story is never about war.

            Out of the war stories that were told by O’Brien in the “How to tell a true war story” chapter, I found the death of Curt Lemon to be more disturbing than killing the baby water buffalo. I don’t really know for sure why I feel this way. I guess it is because the Curt Lemon story was about a person’s death rather than an animal’s death. I’m not an animal rights activist, so I care more about the death of a person than an animal. It was extremely disturbing the way that the story was told. How they had to “Scrape” the body of Curt Lemon off the side of the tree. This creates images in my mind that are much more disturbing than the mutilation of a baby water buffalo.

            These stories are important because they allow the reader to feel what the character went through. Whether they believe it or not, they will at least think about it. They will be at that location, at that time, watching what is happening in real time. This is the meaning of a true war story.

            At the end, Tim O’Brien indicates to the reader that the book was in fact a love story rather than a war story. I think that this means that all of the stories that were told were concocted with the hopes of creating love. All of the stories told were linked to a relationship in one way or another. In addition to this, Tim tries to tell the story with the hopes of creating a love connection with the reader. 

Death Sucks

“Death Sucks”

            Death is a huge theme throughout The Things They Carried. Almost every storied told by Tim O’Brien contains death in some form or another. Many of the stories discuss how children’s innocence has been lost because of witnessing death. Tim O’Brien was young at the time when he was exposed to death. Having just joined the army, he never would have imagined experiencing what he saw.

            This is just one of many ways that war destroys lives. Tim O’Brien lost his youth because of what he saw in the war. He was forced to grow up very quickly compared to other kids. It becomes evident just how much trauma Tim and his fellow soldiers went through when he describes moving all of the dead bodies. He gives great detail about the experience, as if to make the reader feel that they are there. Such as the way he discusses the smell.

            This is the true reality of the war. This is reinforced by the death of Curt Lemon. This was possibly one of the most graphic and disturbing stories in the entire book. Nobody should ever have to go through witnessing his or her friend getting killed by a land mine. It wasn’t only the fact that he witnessed the death, but he then had to scrape pieces of his friend’s body off of a tree. This is just one of many experiences that a person should never have to go through. This reinforces the phrase “Death Sucks”.

            There was one other experience worth noting. This occurred after an air strike was called in a village along the South China Sea. There was only one casualty of this attack. Everyone in Jimmy Cross’s platoon went up to this guy and shook his hand and played with the guy. Tim refused. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. He took a lot of abuse from the rest of his platoon, but Kiowa helped him get through it.

            In conclusion, what the soldiers went through in Vietnam, nobody should ever have to experience. They saw unimaginable things. Things that destroyed their youth and tore their innocence away from them.

Metafiction?

It wasn’t very long ago, so I remember it in great detail. I had to write a journal for English class. The journal was to be written about the book The Things They Carried. Although I enjoyed the book, I didn’t really like writing the journal. See, the problem is that I waited till the last minute to begin it. It was the weekend and I was thinking about things that I had to do. Then it suddenly hit me. “Crap, I have to write nine journals for English by tomorrow.”

I immediately opened up the assignment file and began reading the requirements. I thought at first, “This shouldn’t take too long, I just need to find that little message at the top that says to just choose 2 out of the 9 journals to complete.” That message was non-existent. I had to do all nine. “Great…”

So, here I am, knocking out these journals. They’re supposed to be a page long, but I’m making the font size slightly larger and stopping at three-quarters of a page so that I can save a little time.

A little while later I have written six of the journals. I skipped all of the journals that didn’t seem to make any sense to me.

I come across one that asks me to write a metafiction. I think to myself “What the hell is a metafiction?” I frantically open up google, wikipedia, or any other search engine I could find. I start to read up on what a metafiction is. After reading a Yahoo Answers post, I finally realize what I need to do. I need to write about writing. “What?”

“Hmmmm… I can double space this document now.”

“YES, it’s one page! DONE!”

Ugggh, three more journals to do.

Happening Truth vs. Story Truth

Happening Truth

Entering the war was a tough decision. My peers pressured me into it. During the war, a lot of time was spent hanging around with my fellow soldiers, playing card games. Anything we could do to keep ourselves occupied. It was actually a very rare occurrence that we would use any of our weapons or actually see anyone from the other army. We never really knew the true meaning of war. Only one person in the entire platoon killed anybody. It was completely accidental. The poor guy was just a casualty of the war. Just wondering around one night. Some may say he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

            Story Truth

Entering the war was a tough decision that I had to make, but I knew that I had to do what was right for my country. I remember my friends telling me that I had to go. It was either the war or jail. Or, how I looked at it: I could be brave or I could be a coward. I considered running away, but I didn’t want to be “that guy”. You know, the guy that the town is talking about. I don’t want to be the laughingstock of the town. It seemed to be an easier option to just go and deal with it.

Throughout the entire war, we spent a lot of time on patrols keeping militants away from our camp. Everyone had to keep focused. Anything could happen at any time. Everyone in the platoon has their own stories about something that has happened to them. This is mine. We were doing a patrol one night. Next thing I knew, some armed guy runs up to us. He starts firing his weapon all around our patrol. We all drop to the ground. At that instant, I loaded a single round into my rifle. I only had one shot with my bolt-action rifle without having to reload. Making sure to take careful aim, I lined up the shot, and then pulled the trigger.

            That’s all I remember from that night. I knew I had just killed the guy. It flashed back through my mind over and over again. What had I just done? I had taken the life of another person. I knew, however, that in the heat of battle, what I did was completely necessary to protect the rest of my platoon. I guess it was just luck.

            The next day I went back to look at what I had done. I looked at the guy I had killed. It was just a kid. This made me feel even more ashamed of what I had done.

            “He had a gun, what else could you have done?” The lieutenant would tell me.

            “But he was young enough to be my son…”

            “What you did saved us all” He would tell me

            “ I guess so”

            Then he would say “Lets just go sit down and get a drink…”

We would spend the rest of the night talking about how I saved the entire platoon; about how we all got lucky that none of our guys got killed in the firefight.

            “Good thing that guy has bad aim” the lieutenant would say

We could joke about it all we want, but the truth is, that night could have gone a lot worse than it did. Through the spray of bullets he sent towards out platoon, if any of the rounds hit one of my guys, the night wouldn’t have ended with a laugh.

            “Just glad we didn’t have to bury one of our soldiers tonight” the guys would sit around the table, joking, laughing

            I didn’t think anything was funny about this. They could joke all they want, but it started to get to me. 

The Stockings

            Superstition plays a huge role in The Things They Carried, especially for Henry Dobbins. The moment Dobbins wraps the pantyhose around his neck he becomes invincible. Nothing can harm him. Stories have been told about how Dobbins stepped on a land mine and he got up without a scratch. Another story talks about how he got caught in the middle of a fire fight. He also got up without a single scratch after that experience.

            In my opinion, the only reason people believe in such superstitions is because they have gotten lucky numerous times in a row. Therefore they look for something to blame their luck on. In Dobbins case, the pantyhose wrapped around his neck symbolize such luck. Another reason that he may believe in the superstition is because there is really nothing else to explain what happened to him. There is no explanation for how Dobbins could escape all of those situations alive, let alone without a single scratch.

            I’m the kind of person that will “Knock on wood” a lot. It’s really the only superstition that I fall for. I don’t actually know why I do it; I just fear that if I don’t do it, then something bad will happen. That is really the premise for every superstition.

            In conclusion, I guess people have superstitions because there is no other way to explain some occurrences. For example, there is no way of explaining how Dobbins survived tripping a land mine and getting caught in the middle of a firefight. The soldiers in Vietnam looked towards superstition instead of religion as a way for them to stay safe. 

Mary Anne Bell

Over the course of “The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong” Mary Anne Bell underwent extreme changes in her personality. It is unknown as to whether she went crazy or whether aspects of her personality, that would normally be hidden, were brought out through the war.

I think that she always possessed these personalities but they were just hidden. By entering the harsh environment Vietnam brought, her true personality could be seen. She is really an extremely tough person, possibly more so than some of the soldiers fighting in the war. One event where this is evident is when she goes out on the ambush in the middle of the night. This is extremely dangerous for even the most experience soldiers fighting in the war.

Before entering Vietnam Mary Anne had an extremely bubbly personality. Before she came into the war, she would always wear fancy clothes, such as culottes. This is a true reflection of what her personality used to be. In a way, the changes that Mary Anne go through symbolize the changes that every soldier in Vietnam went through.

Mary Anne is the only real example of love in the book. Many other soldiers carry pictures of their girlfriends. Some even carry items that belong to their girlfriends, such as the stockings. However, Mary Anne is the only girlfriend that was actually brought to Vietnam.

Ultimately, she changes to the point where Mark Fossie doesn’t even recognize her. They begin to slowly separate as she spends time in Vietnam.

I think that the life they were living before Vietnam was a complete fantasy. It was a fantasy that would be proven impossible after Mary Anne experienced how real life could be.

The war didn’t make her crazy and she didn’t go mad. It was simply that the war brought out a side of her that was previously unknown to everybody else. She changed in the same way that every other young man that went through the war changed. Their true colors show in serious circumstances such as the Vietnam war. 

On the draft...

            When faced with the draft notice, O’Brien doesn’t know what to think. On one side of the coin, he thinks that he is a coward for thinking about fleeing. His family and community urge him to go, but he is afraid of fighting in a war that he doesn’t believe in.

            If I was in a similar position, I would have ultimately gone into the war, but not without a fight. I would be too afraid of legal consequences to not go into the war. Unlike O’Brien, I would be too afraid to run away. As O’Brien later realizes, running away was not the best option. It may ultimately be better to do what society asks of you, not because of the peer pressure from your community, but because of the favor your country is asking of you.

            In my opinion, a draft could never be implemented in the U.S. again. In a way, it goes against everything the constitution was made for.

            A study was done and found that 65% of American’s do not support the U.S. participation in the Iraqi war. With such little belief in the war, there would be a lot of resistance to reinstate the draft. Without a doubt, government officials would lose public interest if this passes.

            A “reverse draft” has already been put in place. I think that this is an extremely wrong thing to do. People that have already spent years serving in the military should not be forced by the government to serve more. They have already given back to their country, it’s just selfish of the country to ask even more of them. 

A Memorable Experience

I have been a member on the robotics team for the past four years. Robotics has been one of the most meaningful activities that I took part in during my entire high school experience. As a freshman, I participated as a member of the team not knowing what I was getting my self into. By the time I was a sophomore student team member, I was already given student leadership positions by the coaches. I was responsible for leading a sub-team within the team. This may not seem like much, but as a second year team member, this was a huge deal. I led the team to success when we won the New Jersey VEX regional.

Current team leadership must have seen something impressive in me because they decided to give me another leadership position the following year. However, this time, it was an even more important role. As a junior, I was responsible for a major mechanical element of the robot. I needed to design and build the drive system, the element that gives the robot the ability to move. This was an extreme success. The system worked beautifully throughout the entire season.

Again, the coaches must have seen something else in me. As a senior on the team, I was made given the position as one of two team CEO’s. This is the highest position that could be held by a student on the team. There was on CEO from Pascack Hills HS and one from Pascack Valley HS.

Some people may not understand the true importance of being involved in FIRST robotics. It may seem that the only point is to build and compete with a robot created by a team of high school students. The true importance of the competition lies within the leadership and communication skills that each student involved gains.

This season, FIRST Robotics added one more award to their arsenal of recognition. This award was named the Dean’s List Award Finalist. This award is in recognition of Dean Kamen, the founder of FIRST Robotics (as well as the inventor of the segway). This is the only award that recognizes students individually. There are many other awards that recognize teams as a whole, but none that recognize the students.

Each time is allowed to nominate two students. I was honored to find out that my team had decided to nominate me as one of their student nominations.

Towards the end of the competition, I was totally shocked to hear my name called as one of the two Dean’s List Finalists at the New Jersey regional. This makes me one of 92 students in the world to be selected for this award. It felt amazing to be recognized for my commitment to spreading the message of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) programs to other students with the hope of getting them interested in robotics.

This is just one of many life-changing experiences I encountered while being a member of FIRST Robotics, FRC, Team 1676; One that I will never forget.

What do I carry?

I carry numerous essential items with me on a daily basis. These may not be nearly as essential as the items carried by the soldiers in The Things They Carried, but they are important to me.

As far as tangible items, I would usually carry at least my cell phone and wallet. I guess I’ll begin with the cell phone:

My cell phone allows me to communicate in case I am ever in an emergency situation. This is probably the most important use of the phone. I can also complete most tasks on my phone that I would normally do on my computer (Internet, email, etc….)

Wallet:

Nothing is free anymore. Money is a necessity. Important uses include purchasing food, water, and if I am really in need of shelter, I could stay at a hotel. Besides money, my wallet contains important identification that I may also need to use. For example, if stopped by the police or a some other federal agent, you might as well not be a citizen of the U.S. without proper documentation, such as a drivers license.

Not all items I carry with me are tangible. Most of them I carry with me mentally all of the time. The stress of being a success in life is a big one. I really have no proper method of defining success, therefore, this creates even more stress; not knowing if I am right or wrong. I also carry the family name. I need to prove myself as a useful member of society. If I don’t, I will be an embarrassment to the rest of my family and myself.

The one emotion that I carry with me that bears the greatest weight is my future. I have no idea how my future will pan out. This troubles me greatly. I like being aware of what is to come. This creates a sort of uncertainty. Although many people my age and in my current position also face the threat of uncertainty, it bothers me nonetheless. In a way, this links to my responsibilities. I am responsible to go to college, get a job, and become a “success”.

In my opinion, the weight of an object does not correlate to its importance. This can especially be seen in the intangible items listed above. They hold no specific weight, but they weigh the most mentally. No emotion can be given a defined weight, and emotions are the most important item I carry.

For example, as stated above, the most important item I carry is my responsibilities as a person. Unlike my cell phone and wallet, the intangible items cannot be replaced if they were taken away from me. I could always get a new wallet or a new cell phone. However, I can never replace my responsibility if I don’t prove myself and people lose faith in me.

In conclusion, it is the intangible emotions that weigh most heavily on me. Most importantly, it is the irreplaceable that ultimately will force me to comply with what society asks of me.