"We found most people didn't even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone in peace, and they practiced the art of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Viet Cong, North Vietnamese or American."
I found this video that documented real war veterans and their opinions of the way things really were. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLxQ7oX98iM
War changes people. This fact is realized throughout the book, "The things they carried" but specifically in the story, "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong." When Mark Fossies girlfriend, MaryAnn came into the camp she was sweet, innocent, and in love. But after spending time in the intense settings of the war, her entire persona changed. She seemed to enjoy the urgency of military life and she joined the "Greenies," ambush warriors who were filled with animal instincts. Rat explains that what happened to Mary Anne isn't really that strange: being a woman doesn't make her immune to the way war and the jungle can affect people."The girl joined the zoo . One more animal- end of story" (pg. 107) I found it fascinating jsut how much war can change a person.
When MaryAnn first arrived she had a suitcase, cosmetic bag, a pink sweater, and culottes. And after being in the war for only a month or so, she was found wearing a necklace made of human tongues and living like an animal in a zoo among the greenies. If war can do that to a little girly girl, it can change anybody.
2 comments:
I totally agree with you about the best way of learning is through first hand accounts, but I feel that you should also learn from text books and secondary accounts that have emotion left out. In order to get the complete picture of what happened a person must get subjective stories about battles and the war, but also you must get the objective side of the stories, what was the reason the battle occurred, what were the objectives of the mission, and finally how can we win the war in the fastest way possible. In the novel, Liked how O'Brien told the story about MaryAnn Bell because he made the true emotion out, he brought her to life and death. The story really opened my eyes about how a person can change and I realized the implications of war and the physical and mental hazards that war can bring upon someone.
Mary Ann Bell was just like everyone else when she was in country. At first, she was like an innocent child but she soon changed. When O'Brien was wrote about how she wanted to go to new villages and to experience the country side, she was not aware of the imitate danger of what was around, but she soon realized about the danger of Vietnam. Mary Ann quick learned the ways of the land. She learned how to stabilize men that were hurt in battle, then she moved on to learn about how to defend yourself against the enemy. The men thought she was "good for morale" but soon like the other men she became lethargic and became addicted to blood-shed. The described Vietnam as, "Vietnam had the effect of a powerful drug: that mix of unnamed terror and unnamed pleasure that comes as the needle slips in and you know you're risking something" (O'Brien 114). Just like Mary Ann, no one can really figure out what war is all about, the only thing war allows you to do is to help you figure out who you are.
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