Vietnam War Assignment
By: Brooke Shaw
Summary
"Song of Napalm" By Bruce Weigl
This poem is basically the aftermath of almost every Veteran that came home from the war. Weigl talks about how even looking outside on a rainy day can mess with his head and bring him back to the war. Hearing the thunder and seeing the branches on the ground reminding him of wires. He tries to force himself to remember where he actually is and know that its just his imagination playing with his mind but it doesn't last long before he's imagining a girl running from her village, while her clothes are being burned off her from the gas they used.
The Things They Carried: The Man I Killed
In this chapter Kiowa (soldier in Vietnam War) just throw a bomb at Vietcong soldier and he's begins to observe the damage that the bomb did to the young man. While he lays there died Kiowa finds himself talking to died body and at a point feeling bad too. Thinking how things could have gone differently like if their roles were changed, how it would have went.
Important Passages
"Song of Napalm" by Bruce Weigl
"Okay. The storm stopped pounding.
I am trying to say this straight: for once
I was sane enough to pause and breathe
Outside my wild plans and after the hard rain
I turned my back on the old curses. I believed
They swung finally away from me ...
But still the branches are wire
And thunder us the pounding mortar,
Still I close my eyes and see the girl
Running from her village, napalm
Stuck to her dress like jelly,
Her hands reaching for the no one
Who waits in waves of heat before her."
This piece from the poem is important because its the part where you can see him transitioning from trying to forget about what happened and not being able to.
Important Passages
The Things They Carried: The Man I Killed
"His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole, his eyebrows were thin and arched like a women's, his nose was undamaged, there was a slight tar at the lobe of one ear, his clean black hair was swept upward into a cowlick at the ear of the skull, his forehead was lightly freckled, his fingernails were clean, the skin at his left cheek was peeled back in three ragged strips, his right cheek was smooth and hairless, there was butterfly on his chin, his neck was open to the spinal cord and the blood there was thick and shinny and it was this wound that had killed him" (Tim O'Brien 124).
This section of the book is important to the reading because Kiowa constantly repeats parts of this section through the chapter because I feel like its somewhat in denial about what he did to the young man.
Discusion Questions
What message are these authors trying to convey to the readers about war? what is the impact war has on people?
Both the authors are trying to convey the effects that war has on somebody. After being there for so long and seeing so many traumatizing things. Losing somebody everyday in their platoon. Then going home not being able to just relax for one second and enjoy your family with out being in fear of their imagination or visualizing the past. Also not understanding after awhile why your even in war. How much it messes with your mind.
Video and Picture
My video basically gives a summary of everything that was happening during the Vietnam war and then back in the United States. It provides both views on how the war was effecting the people in the villages, being run out their homes and children getting stripped of their clothing by the. Then Americans protesting the war and going against the government. It just shows the cause and effect the war brought.
My picture to me reminds of the book The Things They Carried and how they men always had each others back even when they were into it, they still looked out for each other.