To Tell or Not to Tell a War Story Phil Klay and Tim O’Brien are two very distinct war authors. Klay was a marine during the Iraq war, and O’Brien was an infantryman in the Vietnam War. Although the wars they were in are vastly different, they each have a story that focuses on the act of telling war stories. O’Brien’s story is “How to Tell a True War Story” from The Things They Carried, and Klay’s story is “War Stories” from Redeployment.…
Compare and Contrast “Soldier’s Home” and “How to Tell a True War Story” War can be defined as an ongoing armed conflict between different nations or states. Over the years there have been multiple authors who have written war stories and their effects on individuals. The protagonists in both stories are soldiers of war but they fought in different wars. Tim O’Brien’s How to Tell a True War Story and Soldier’s Home written by Ernest Hemingway are both stories that illustrate the effect war can have on just your average person. O’Brien’s How to Tell a True War Story is set during the Vietnam War as his narrator is on tour there, while Hemmingway’s Soldier’s Home is during post World War 1 in Oklahoma.…
Even today people that served deal with not only physical effects, but many psychological effects as well. During the war they’re exposed to pain, grief, hatred, fear, stress, confusion, and anxiety. Today, many of them have symptoms such as; PTSD, anxiety, depression, temper problems, and many other things. As you can see, even though The Things They Carried is a piece of fiction, there is a lot of nonfiction elements to it. There is a lot of emotion from the soldiers during and after the war.…
Occasionally some of the stories will have an emotional appeal and it will make you feel hopeless and sulky “ People see things in war that the human soul is not equipped to bear. In every war, soldiers return wounded not in their bodies but in their minds” (Campbell 4). The…
Richie Perry is a seventeen year old kid who couldn’t afford college so he went into the army. He is sent to Vietnam to fight. “All the other guys in the neighborhood thought I was going to college. I wasn’t, and the army was the place I was going to get away from all the questions” (Myers page 15).Since Richie couldn’t afford college, the only place to go was the army. Everyone in the neighborhood thought he was going to college and kept asking him.…
She was one of the girliest girls I knew since grade school, with her stylish culottes and pink garments of all different shades for all different occasions. She was the epitome of a mixture between pure innocence and quirk that boldly took her rightful place in the middle of my heart. Mary Anne wasn’t just all of that; she was also my affectionate girlfriend, my warm-hearted best friend who I could talk about anything with, from the most trivial things to the very meaning of our whole existence. At the time, all I could feel was the absolute joy that I got from spending my time with her. We had our entire happiness in the future planned out, a dream wedding and all, but maybe that was the reason why I wouldn’t have ever imagined that I would be feeling so lost and empty just a few years later, alone and missing a part of myself.…
The Infantryman I joined the Infantry as I wanted a challenge and excitement in my life. We are known to be stupid by the rest of the army. Actually, we are the most valuable bunch in the army. Our training is one of the hardest training that you can ever go through as a human being. It test you physically, mentally and emotionally.…
“It was like a blade cutting grain. He heard the bullets hitting the men-- little thunk-slaps-- and saw the men falling. Some of them screamed as they fell. Most were silent. Many were dead before they hit the ground.…
The Good Soldiers by David Finkel is a non-fiction account of the harsh realities of war. After reading this novel, it becomes clear that America as a country is truly blind to not only how difficult it is for soldiers at war to witness the moments in battle, but also the daily activities that maintain their ability to survive. Written with candor by the Washington Post journalist Finkel who spent 8 months with a group of Iraq war soldiers known as the 2-16, his honest and heartbreaking depiction of the trials and tribulations of war and the toll it took on these men both physically and mentally leaves readers heartbroken and emotionally scarred. In the novel, Finkel chooses not to write from the first person perspective even though he witnessed the events take place.…
The article "Iraq Anniversary: How Poetry Played a Part in the War in Iraq" is an article is about the war in Iraq and the impact which was brought about by poetry. The poems in this articles display different features of style,this author mentions John, a platoon commander, who narrates the journey of poetry in war through his contribution and also the contribution of others. After war John acquires a masters in poetry and becomes a pioneer of war poetry through consulting his friends on war poetry. This article also clearly describes the events: inspired by poetry, which contributed to the ending of the war in Iraq.…
Hallo, I am 22 year old Erich Heusinger of Brandenburg, Germany. I am Catholic and am moderately wealthy through affluent parents. I am currently fighting in the trenches of this great war. I enlisted with my classmates a few years after I finished high school, vying for the glory common to heroic tales of warfare. My older brother, Karl enlisted in the naval forces.…
A war story can be told many times over and still hold its value. A true war story shows the entire picture with all components no matter how obcene they might be. A true war story never fails to tell the truth about the hell that is war. When defining truth one must first differentiate between happening truth and reality. Happening truth is the actions that actually took place at a certain time.…
He depicts these soldiers coming together despite their radically different backgrounds to overcome the horrors they have witnessed while apart of the…
The lives of men in war are completely different than any ordinary day for someone not in war. They face many things that regular people couldn’t cope with. They have to worry about loud noises; the machine guns, diseases, and exploding artillery shells that often caused them to panic and lose their bearings. They only went forward because they were carried on by the force of the soldiers around them. Soldiers in war also lived with the persistent presence of death and watching people they loved die.…
It shows how these young men have been victimized by an ideology that some individuals still carry and believe. People do not realize what soldiers have to endure in battle. Additionally, it shows the remarkable connection that the soldiers have with one another. Soldiers fight for the same ideals and with the same passion for the sake of their land and glory. Of course, there is a price for this glory—destruction and loss of lives.…