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“Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to war puts an end to mankind”. (John F. Kennedy) “Ambush”, written by Tim O’Brien is a short story that paints a picture of how war makes us safe or less safe in our own country. The story reveals how war can take a very dramatic toll on our soldiers mental capacities, and how it numbs them, turning them into killing machines with no remorse. Humans should not be okay with the fact of killing other people, yet it is implemented into our soldiers brains like computer coding. War makes us feel less safe on our home soil because we are vulnerable to attacks, our loved ones whom we cherish are fighting overseas, and at any time our young citizens can be called for deployment. First, we
In the pursuit of safety, acceptance, and the public good, many atrocities have been committed in places such as Abu Ghraib and My Lai, where simple, generally harmless people became the wiling torturers and murderers of innocent people. Many claim to have just been following orders, which illustrates a disturbing trend in both the modern military and modern societies as a whole; when forced into an obedient mindset, many normal and everyday people can become tools of destruction and sorrow, uncaringly inflicting pain and death upon the innocent.
The book Outlaw Platoon written by Sean Parnell is a soldiers’ tale of his platoon in one of the most dangerous places on earth. This book is a non-fiction riveting work that tells the story of a platoon that spent sixteen months on an operating base in the Bermel Valley, the border of Pakistan. This mission the men were sent on was part of a mission called Operation Enduring Freedom. This book is extremely relevant to the war that we are still fighting in Afghanistan and the humanitarian work that continues. We still have men in this area fighting and losing their lives everyday. It is the focus of ongoing political debates and the purpose of our involvement there is an ongoing question in the minds of many Americans. In writing this book, Parnell makes it clear in his author’s notes that he indeed was not trying to pursue one political agenda over another. His goal as not to speak of all members of the platoon and expose their identities and the types of soldiers they were but instead to showcase some of the men’s bravery and abilities during the war. Parnell believed that he owed it to the men to write something that would show the world what these men go through during combat in an honest and raw account. Another purpose of Parnell’s in writing this book is an attempt at making sure these men are given a place in American war history.
War has been a constant part of human history. It has greatly affected the lives of people around the world. These effects, however, are extremely detrimental. Soldiers must shoulder extreme stress on the battlefield. Those that cannot mentally overcome these challenges may develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sadly, some resort to suicide to escape their insecurities. Soldiers, however, are not the only ones affected by wars; family members also experience mental hardships when their loved ones are sent to war. Timothy Findley accurately portrays the detrimental effects wars have on individuals in his masterpiece The Wars.
Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, conveys, “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom”. In other words, Aristotle states that the gaining of self-knowledge provides an individual with the ability to know one’s personal gifts and accountabilities. To start one’s adult life a person must pursue the journey of self-discovery to learn in depth about their skills and weaknesses. Individuals must find themselves through the limitations and ordeals that they face during their voyage for self-awareness. For example, in Tim O’Brien’s short story, “On the Rainy River”, the narrator shares his story about self-discovery. O’Brien looks back into his past, to the time when he was called to serve in the Vietnam War. O’Brien’s initial
War has always been an essential ingredient in the development of the human race. As a result of the battles fought in ancient times, up until modern warfare, millions of innocent lives have ended as a result of war crimes committed. In the article, “The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience,” Herbert C. Kelman and V.Lee Hamilton shows examples of moral decisions taken by people involved with war-related murders. This article details one of the worse atrocities committed during the Vietnam War in 1968 by the U.S. military: the My Lai Massacre. Through this incident, the question that really calls for psychological analysis is why so many people are willing to formulate , participate in, and condone policies that call for the mass killings of defenseless civilians such as the atrocities committed during the My Lai massacre. What influences these soldiers by applying different psychological theories that have been developed on human behavior.
The word "hero" is so often used to describe people who overcome great difficulties and rise to the challenge that is set before them without even considering the overwhelming odds they are up against. In our culture, heroes are glorified in literature and in the media in various shapes and forms. However, I believe that many of the greatest heroes in our society never receive the credit that they deserve, much less fame or publicity. I believe that a hero is simply someone who stands up for what he/she believes in. A person does not have to rush into a burning building and save someone's life to be a hero. Someone who is a true friend can be a hero. A hero is someone who makes a difference in the lives of others simply by his/her presence. In Tim O'Brien's novel, The Things They Carried, the true heroes stand out in my mind as those who were true friends and fought for what they believed in. These men and women faced the atrocities of war on a daily basis, as explained by critic David R. Jarraway's essay, "'Excremental Assault' in Tim O'Brien: Trauma and Recovery in Vietnam War Literature" and by Vietnam Veteran Jim Carter. Yet these characters became heroes not by going to drastic measures to do something that would draw attention to themselves, but by being true to their own beliefs and by making a difference to the people around them.
In the aftermath of a comparatively minor misfortune, all parties concerned seem to be eager to direct the blame to someone or something else. It seems so easy to pin down one specific mistake that caused everything else to go wrong in an everyday situation. However, war is a vastly different story. War is ambiguous, an enormous and intangible event, and it cannot simply be blamed for the resulting deaths for which it is indirectly responsible. Tim O’Brien’s story, “In the Field,” illustrates whom the soldiers turn to with the massive burden of responsibility for a tragedy. The horrible circumstances of war transform all involved and tinge them with an absurd feeling of personal responsibility as they struggle to cope.
In life, everyone needs to survive in some way. Some people may have to survive from hunger, or maybe they have to survive without a home, or without a family. How you try to survive makes all the difference. In the short story “Attack,” by Ralph Fletcher a boy and his family’s roosters are attacked. But, everyone still believes that some roosters are alive. “Attack” shows, there is always a way to survival. This is true when, the mom believes there are survivors, also when two people in the family go into the woods and don’t give up looking for roosters that have survived, and most of all when the mom and Johnny a brother come back with two rooster survivors.
The point of stories it to tell a tale and inflict certain emotions onto the reader. Tim O’Brien uses this in his novel The Things They Carried. These stories were fictional but true, regaling his experiences of war. In the last chapter he writes that stories have the ability to save people. He does not mean “save” in a biblical sense, but as if a person saved the progress on a game they have been playing.
The Civil War, World War I, the Vietnam War, World War II, and the conflict in the Middle East are all wars that have been fought over the difference of opinions, yet come at the cost of the soldier 's fighting them; Humans killing other humans, and death is just one of the many emotional scars soldiers of war face. Why do we go to war when this is the cost? For many it is because they are unaware of the psychological cost of war, they are only aware of the monetary cost or the personal gains they get from war. Tim O 'Brien addresses the true cost of war in "The Things They Carried". O 'Brien suggests that psychological trauma caused by war warps the perception of life in young Americans drafted into the Vietnam War. He does this through Lieutenant
Everyday individuals face decisions in which they must choose whether to do what is appealing to them or to choose a more suitable and compliable choice. In the fictional work of ‘The Things They Carried’ by Tim O’ Brien, certain characters such as Tim O’ Brien himself must face decisions similar to these. The novel demonstrates that when an individual is faced with a decision in which there is a choice that he may have to conform, the individual tends to conform due to not wanting to embarrass themselves or to not be portrayed as a coward to others. However when the individual is challenged with these types of decisions, the choice does not matter since the outcome will be what the individual was trying to avoid. That is to say that in the excerpt “The Rainy River” Tim O’ Brien was going through a conflicting decision on whether or not he should go to the war. Yet, as we see it turns out that either choice will lead to either shame or cowardice. If he goes to the war he feels that he will be a coward and that he gave up his own morals and values and accepted something he does not believe in, but if he does not go to war he will be shunned by society and will be labelled as a coward because he will not fight for his country.
Courage and Cowardice in The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien Through The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien moves beyond the horror of fighting in the Vietnam War to examine with sensitivity and insight the nature of courage and fear. Included, is a collection of interrelated stories. A few of the stories are brutal, while others are flawed, blurring the distinction between fact and fiction. All the stories, however, deal with one platoon. Some are about the wartime experiences of soldiers, and others are about a 43-year-old writer reminiscing about his platoon’s experiences.
In the novel, A Hero’s Journey, Joseph Campbell, an American mythologist, writer, and lecturer, states that “every decision made by a young person is life decisive. What seems to be a small problem is really a large one. So everything that is done early in life is functionally related to a life trajectory” (Campbell). In mythic criticism, the critic sees mythic archetypes and imagery connecting and contrasting it with other similar works. Certain patterns emerge, such as a traditional hero on a journey towards self actualization. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer portrays this hero’s journey. The protagonist of the novel, Chris McCandless, hitchhikes to Alaska and walks alone into the wilderness, north of Mt. McKinley. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. He thought that the reality of the modern world was corrupt and uncompassionate, so he went on this journey in order to find a life of solitude and innocence that could only be expressed through his encounters with the wild. During this ambitious journey to find the true meaning of life, Chris McCandless exhibits a pattern like the type explained above. In Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, Chris McCandless follows this mythic pattern, seeking to be the traditional hero who spurns civilization, yet he discovers that modern heroes cannot escape their reality.
War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, written by the talented author Chris Hedges, gives us provoking thoughts that are somewhat painful to read but at the same time are quite personal confessions. Chris Hedges, a talented journalist to say the least, brings nearly 15 years of being a foreign correspondent to this book and subjectively concludes how all of his world experiences tie together. Throughout his book, he unifies themes present in all wars he experienced first hand. The most important themes I was able to draw from this book were, war skews reality, dominates culture, seduces society with its heroic attributes, distorts memory, and supports a cause, and allures us by a constant battle between death and love.
War has always been something to be dreaded by people since nothing good comes from it. War affects people of all ages, cultures, races and religion. It brings change, destruction and death and these affect people to great extents. “Every day as a result of war and conflict thousands of civilians are killed, and more than half of these victims are children” (Graca & Salgado, 81). War is hard on each and every affected person, but the most affected are the children.