Post responses to the following questions. This discussion should be beneficial to your final assessment options.
According to O'Brien, how do you tell a true war story? What does he mean when he says that true war stories are never about war? What does he mean when he writes of one story, "That's a true story that never happened?
How do the stories in the book help you in understanding the frustration and/or disillusionment of so many U.S. troops who fought in Vietnam? Similarities/parallels to war in Iraq?
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A true war story is the relationship between the war and love. When you love something so much sometimes you exaggerate the stories. I think that the stories they tell are true but the events were so emotional that it effected the soilders to the extent that they emotionally, were thinking that these little details were all true. Like i believe that lemon got blown up but the way that the tim says that he was surrounded by a beam of light then taken through the trees might have been a little over the edge. Lemon was blown up but it was not as graceful as they said it was.
ReplyDeleteThe stories help me by grabbing my attention and keeping it. the different stories changed my perspective towards looking at the soilders as bad men but men that were scared and had to do what they were told to in order to survive. it was not like the men meant to be happy and aggressive towards the vietcong but its because that they cant afford to pounder about the past and what they cant change anymore. This whole time of reading the novel, i just kept on thinking about how our men in Iraq must feel. They must have similar emotional stabilty as the men of WWII.
According to O'Brien, how do you tell a true war story? What does he mean when he says that true war stories are never about war? What does he mean when he writes of one story, "That's a true story that never happened"?
ReplyDeleteAccording to O'Brien, a true war story is never about war. War stories are contradictory, and are a mix between what actually happened and what the people who are telling the stories make up about what happened. The whole story is a question of credibility. O'Brien says, "Often the crazxy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn't, because the normal stuff is necessary to make you believe the truly incredible craziness." You have to tell a war story without adding any personal bias, just the facts. But at the same time, you have to add a little bit of exageration to the story to make it seem truly raw. It has to be an almost inexplanable thing.
How do the stories in the book help you in understanding the frustration and/or disillusionment of so many U.S. troops who fought in Vietnam? Similarities/parallels to war in Iraq?
The personal stories in the book help me to understand their pain and frustration because it shows the war on a personal level, not such a broad level. Reading the book, it's like you're there with them in the field, getting shot at. You're no staring at a black and white TV screen back home in America. Friends dying and the guilt of killing many many people affects the soldiers in a negative way, and they sometimes feel helpless. This is how soldiers in every war feel. Also, the Vietnam war and Iraqi war are very similar in that many people didn't support it, soldiers didn't want to be fighting it, and almost no one knew why America was even in a war with Vietnam.