The Things They Carried Response

The Ghost Soldiers

For this Summary and analyzation I chose “The Ghost Soldiers” written by Tim O’Brien. This story is about two different instances where in Tim was shot. The first time he was hit on the side and was lucky enough to land in his friends lap who also happened to be the medic. He talks about what it feels like to think that you may be dying and the things that randomly pass through your mind as he laid there. He recalls how amazing it was that his friend kept checking on him and caring for him, even though he had to risk his own life to make his way over to him each time. Tim then writes how his friend and comrade almost seemed to hug him as he put him in the chopper to send him off to the hospital. He recalls that there was almost no pain, and he remembers how thankful he was to have a friend like that.

After recovering in the hospital for a short time, Tim gets sent back to the front lines to rejoin his company. He finds out that his friend had been shot and was off recovering same as he had been. So when Tim was shot the second time a new kid was the medic. He was terrified and took forever to get over to him. Even then, the kid was so scared that he botched the repair job on his wound and almost let him die of shock. The wound became infected and wouldn’t seem to heal. Tim had to be put on the back lines away from the fighting and away from his friends. He hated the kid for not caring for him correctly and swore he would get him back. And when the time came he did just that.

When his old company came in for downtime he hatched a plan to mess with the kid and scare him half to death. Most didn’t agree but he found one that would help. They set up sound devices and flares to scare him while he was on watch duty. All in all, in the end they didn’t trick him and he didn’t get too scared. Tim felt bad about what he had done to try and get back at him and they ended up becoming friends.

This entire story is about trust and earning it. He completely trusts the friend that he had been fighting along side with for who knows how long, and was ok with him leaving him there all bloody to go fight. He knew that he could trust him and his decisions. However he didn’t even get a chance to know the new guy before he had no choice but to leave his life in his hands. So when the guy is so scared from being new that he screws up and almost lets him die, Tim decided to hate him forever. If it was his friend that he had fought along side with he, wouldn’t have been mad or resentful. He would have died peacefully and thankful for the help that his friend tried to give him. It was simply because he didn’t know him or trust him yet that he decided to hate him.

For more on Tim O’Brien: www.timobrien.net

http://www.utexas.edu/news/images/2007/research/2576_hrc_obrien_tim.jpg

Sam Hamill Response

Some readings that we have to do in school are boring and un-interesting to say the least. This however, was a nice change of pace. I am a person that has always questioned everything in the world just for the shear sake of challenging the truth. Just because someone says that this is the way it is or that this is how things are supposed to be doesn’t make them right. It simply makes them human just like you and I. We all get things wrong from time to time and usually more than we would like to admit. But as a culture we refuse to accept the fact that as a society we have failed each other. It is a very long chain of issues that we started screwing up a very long time ago. Most people grow up to act like their parents did, and their grandparents before that. It takes a special person to grow up to be different from the ones that they are raised by.

Sam speaks about rape and how we don’t talk about it or teach our kids enough to be weary of everyone they meet. How we shadow them from a dirty murderous history that somehow we have justified in most peoples minds. How people are embarrassed by feelings and showing them. How one crying poet can make a whole room uncomfortable. We have been desensitized to feeling and emotion. I remember as child being told that men don’t cry and to toughen up. I’ll be the first to admit, I still cry to this day and it’s a good thing. To be able release that emotion when it needs to be let out is important. It is when you hold all that emotion in and suppress it that you end up blowing up. That is how violence is created and wars begin.

Maybe it was because I was mostly raised by my mother or maybe I am just different than most, but I crave touch. Sam talks about how most men don’t even know how to show affection and I think that is sad. There are men out there that are uncomfortable hugging their own mothers I’ve seen it. I can’t imagine not being able to show love and affection to the very human that gave you life. Like the men out there that cannot say I love you. Why not? Do you no longer feel love? Have you forgotten what love is? Is there no one in the world to show you love? Is that the problem? I do not understand how a feeling so great, perhaps the best feeling in the world can be pushed away and not wanted nor needed by some. The simple feeling of human touch may be the greatest sensory stimulant there is. Nothing feels like touching the skin of someone else or the feeling of being touched by someone you care for and love. I cannot imagine being one of the children that you hear about that their parents never picked them up or hugged them or showed them love. Children that are in the way, an inconvenience to the ones that are supposed to care for them the most.

What it comes down to is people need to open their eyes! As a society we walk around with our heads down not watching the world around us. We watch fabricated news and believe that it is the truth. Like we actually went to Iraq to help them? Please, the only reason that we even set foot there is for the black stuff that currently makes our world rotate. Our government sends supposed “Aide” to other countries to help, when in reality it is just to get everyone focused on something else than the terrible things that we are doing to other people. I think it is time that we worry about what is going on as a human race. Look at us; we are selfish, unjust, uncompassionate, and cruel. We need to wake up and look at the big picture. The one in which our world is failing and we are failing our world. Our kids will be lucky if this earth is half as beautiful as the day they were born. Change needs to start now.

For more on Sam Hamill: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/733

Response to Powers

For my second response I chose “Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting” (Powers). I like that the title is almost longer than the poem. I love short poems, not because I am lazy but because being able to convey something so serious and heartfelt in something so short is truly amazing. I have never been to war nor do I plan on going. I would defend my country any day but I will not defend our stupid government that runs it. I have no personal way to relate to this poem besides the fact that it captivated me from the first line. I cannot imagine trying to write a love letter or a poem during war. Sitting in a trench waiting for a mortar to come raining down on you to end everything. Not knowing if these were the last words that you would ever send home. Knowing that the last time you saw your loved ones eyes could have been your last. Wondering what you are even doing there besides killing people because you’re told to.

How the reader compares his love for what I assume is his wife to ten minutes of sleep or to not killing is amazing. It shows just how tired and mentally worn the soldiers are. Either way you look at it that is a lot of love. I guess almost everyone loves not to kill, but until you are forced to you cannot truly appreciate it. The way that he describes how the letter will stink of his surroundings and of what the letter says, almost puts you there with him. I can’t imagine being surrounded by death and violence. Yet trying to think of home and the ones you love so that you can write a letter that will not make them worry any more than they already do. I think that is why most soldiers do not talk about what happens over there. They don’t want to expose our innocent minds to the horror that they have been exposed to. We have it in our heads that everything is ok simply because we are not in the middle of it. Ignorance is bliss.

Works Cited

Powers, Kevin C. “Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting” (Feb, 2009) Poetry

https://1bb.yc.edu/webapps/blackboard/content/contentWrapper.jsp?content_id=_1134902_1&displayName=Kevin+Powers,+Letter+Composed+During+a+Lull+in+the+Fighting&course_id=_21831_1&navItem=content&href=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html%3Fid%3D182821

For more on Powers: https://1bb.yc.edu/webapps/blackboard/content/contentWrapper.jsp?content_id=_1134902_1&displayName=Kevin+Powers,+Letter+Composed+During+a+Lull+in+the+Fighting&course_id=_21831_1&navItem=content&href=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html%3Fid%3D182821

Response to Baca

I decided to respond to the poem titled “Immigrants in Our Own Land” (Baca).

At first when I started to stroll through the words I thought he might be talking about arriving at the pearly gates, but I thought it kind of strange that they were receiving overalls. Only after reading further did I realize that the reader is talking about going to prison. This struck a personal nerve with me because my father was in prison until the time I was nine. The reader talks about how they dream of a better life and are promised a new start in this world when their time is through. Yet when they arrive he realizes it is all a lie or at least the opportunities they say they had are not as his location. The prisoners are discouraged that they cannot better themselves like they were told they would be able to. They realize that things are no different in prison than they are on the outside. All the same problems are just contained in a smaller area.

I feel that the true message of this poem is to convey the frustration within the prison system at this point in time. They all have been put away to conform and reset their minds to the way the world thinks they should be. Yet when they arrive and throughout their stay the chance to change is all but taken away. They are restricted in their cell when they should be sitting in school. Instead of schooling or training they send them to work in fields or wash dishes, like that is going to help? I don’t even know anyone on the outside that enjoys those things. Don’t get me wrong I understand that punishment is in order and needed, but how do you expect people to get better if they don’t have the chance. If you read the poem you will feel the frustration and anger in the underlying tones. Can we really expect people to change when we are feeding their anger and frustrations? Can you really better someone by breaking their spirit and stuffing them in a hole? I think not. I say kill off the ones that deserve it and concentrate on the ones that can make a difference.

Works Cited

Baca, Jimmy Santiago. “Immigrants in Our Own land.” (1977) New Directions Publishing www.ndpublishing.com

https://1bb.yc.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=/webapps/blackboard/execute/launcher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_21831_1%26url%3D

For more on Jimmy Baca: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=81867

Let me introduce myself

Good Readers and Good Writers

Good Readers and Good Writers

Nabokov said that a good reader should have a dictionary, a decent memory, some artistic sense, and plenty of imagination. You also need the perfect balance between art and science to keep things even as you read and gather the information that is laid out in front of you as you turn the pages. If you don’t chances are you’re not much of reader. Well as far as Nabokov was concerned. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Nabokov

I agree with Nabokov when it comes to great pieces of literature and amazing authors. Yet anyone can pick up a Harry Potter book and have an idea of what is going to happen and still have a great time reading it. I think if the reader enjoys the book and the experience of reading it, they are a good reader. That’s what matters when I read. As far as I’m concerned, as long as you understand what you are reading and you like it enough to pick it up and read it cover to cover you’re a good reader. Who cares what other people say.

I guess if I read more I would consider myself a good reader. I have enjoyed some great books here and there but never anything that I couldn’t put down to go do something outside. It’s not that I don’t enjoy great books I just like doing other things more. That and if it’s a really good book, they will make a really good movie. If the movie is only so-so the book probably isn’t much better. I am sure there are a few exceptions but most is good enough for me.