Separate Wars, Similiar Experiences

The Vietnam and Iraqi wars that America has participated are mostly seen as senseless wars to the American people. The wars were fought for two different reasons yet you can draw and compare experiences from American veterans of the war. Not only have I had experiences with my father, and lived with him when he returned from the war, but every soldier handles themselves after their war by taking the best path for them. Whether it is to talk about it to others, or go to therapy, they find a way to make it best for them. Kobe Bazelle is an American soldier who keeps a blog and talks in Iraq. The blog he talks in is not only a coping mechanism for him but he's also helped others along the way. Kobe states "sometimes people never know how they are helping others" (14:18) regarding a woman who emailed him on how she lost her son in the war before he made it home. In Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”, Obrien used the book he wrote to cope with his own struggles from the Vietnam War. O’Brien states in the book “I can be brave. I can make myself feel again.” (P. 172 O’Brien). The quote deeply underlines the extreme emotional and conscious pressure he had put on him, and still could be there. Both examples serve as how both soldiers from different wars can relate on the same level, and can tell their story to us.

Simple decisions in time of war can put one or more people in danger. For example, Bazelle talks in his blog about how a stupid placement of ammo almost cost him and others their lives. "Having the ammo on the outside of the vehicle was the worst fucking idea ever and whoever had that idea should be fucking shot.” The decision was based off orders, and they could do nothing about it. In “The Things They Carried” Lt. Jimmy Cross followed orders, into where he put Kiowa in a deadly position. Kiowa later lost his life, leaving Lt. Cross with nothing but shame and gut eating guilt. "But it was a war, and he had his orders...A stupid mistake. That's all it was, a mistake, but it had killed Kiowa"(P. 161 O’Brien) Mistakes are made even in life threatening situations, yet life goes on whether a person moves on and recovers, or being slowly drowned by their own guilt. Two very different wars, yet the same pain and encounters are shared. 

Blog Assignment 1

The Things They Carried and On Keeping a Notebook both highlight the importance of telling and sharing stories to keep them alive. Based off fact, stories are never told %100 truthfully based off our mood, setting, etc. Human perception rather exaggerates certain things or people and changes a story completely based from the author. Both authors (O’Brien and Didion) agree that story telling proves to be more believable and interesting, usually because they are remembered and told from eventful moments in a person’s life. "By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up others. You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened, like that night in the shit field, and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain" (O'Brien, 152). O’Brien is clearly stating that objectifying your own experience is better than the factual happenings from the event you experienced. I agree with what O’brien is stating, because my experiences have me made me the person I am today whether it was for the best or worse.  The tools (experiences) that we are given in life determines the person we are, depending on how we interpret them and how we absorb them. Didion further supports the idea by saying "So the point of my keeping a notebook has never been, nor is it now, to have an accurate factual record of what I have been doing or thinking" (Didion, 83). Didion plainly states that it was never for facts or records and continues in the next paragraph. “Very likely they [relatives of Didion] are right, for not only have I had trouble distinguishing between what happened and what merely might have happened, but I remain unconvinced that the distinction, for my purposes, matters.” (Didion, 83). When Didion compared the “same” memories to other family members, they told her that her memories were wrong based off their own memories. The pinnacle of the subject is that every person has unique experiences that we will never have. Everyone you know is in their own little world experiencing some things we will but from different angles. Not only is every person special in their own way but their experiences are as well.

                Identity can play a key role in Authors writing. The author can use their Identity in many was such as affiliating themselves with certain ideas or sending a message to the reader of their own ideas. As previously said before, our experiences determine who we are, and that is our identity. As humans we can look at our own selves and our own body and distinguish our identity, and look at a decade old pictures and identify ourselves and our differences.  As you read The Things They Carried, O’Brien feeds an eating guilt thinking and writing about the war, wishing he could never experience the horrible events that transpired. “But the thing about remembering is you don’t forget. You take material where you find it, which is in your life, at the intersection of past and present.” (O’Brien, 83) O’Brien identifies himself with his memories who makes him into then person he is. Tragic and first time memories stick with us with most as we are the most vulnerable to the stimuli that affects us. That is what identifies us is the memories that still linger in our brain, teaching us valuable lessons or putting your mind into a less healthier state. To add on Didion states “It all comes back. Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one self’s back in that kind of mood, but I do not see it; I think we are all well advised to keep on nodding terms we used to be whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the minds door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.”  (Didion, last page). We must accept who we are and our identity, and even our past identitys because we must make amends to the things we have done to others, and the things they have done to us. Whether what we write down is true or not, the memories we hold dear to us is what matters, and what molds us into who we are. The importance of writing is not only to hold memories, but to help us learn as people, and give us experiences that can mean something to us.