Analysis Of ' Bodies ' By Phil Klay

America is well known and hated across the globe for its involvement in foreign conflicts and affairs. The self proclaimed police of the world, America often goes too far when it comes to its involvement overseas. Many times the outcomes of these conflicts is overlooked and the effect it will have on america and other countries. Often times the American news media and politicians will claim that America 's goal is to bring freedom and liberty to other countries. However, this is a ploy to get the public on board and in reality war is used to make politicians and corporations richer. Tim O’Brien experienced this firsthand when he was shipped off to Vietnam in 1969. When he came back he finished his education at Harvard and was inspired to write a memoir about his experiences. “If I Die in a Combat Zone Box Me Up and Ship Me Home” tells his story as a foot soldier and the effects it had on himself and other soldiers physically, emotionally, and mentally. The books starts with O’Brien as a child playing war games and then moves to when he was drafted. In the bootcamp O’Brien had contemplated deserting but ultimately decided not to so that his family would not be disgraced. He was then sent off to Vietnam where he was placed in the Alpha company. O’Brien talks about things like his involvement in ambushes to his interactions with locals. With this piece O’Brien was trying to show the horrors of war and and how it affected the soldiers sent to fight in

The rambunctious behavior of the soldier’s triumphant victory is a strong message visually for the viewer. These soldiers struggle to find their identity and once the war ends, the identity they’ve build at war vanishes, (McCutcheon, 2007). As a result, they essentially lose a part of them selves, (McCutcheon, 2007). When they return home, many soldiers struggle with psychological issues that prevent them from resuming their once regular lives, (McCutcheon, 2007). The images of soldiers celebrating at the end of war give the viewer a taste of this problem. This also allows the viewer insight to the deeper issues surrounding an American soldier’s mental stability and mentality. Through this image, along with many others throughout the film, the viewer is able to dig deeper and truly analyze what they are seeing.

Everyday men and women die in the most brutal way possible away from their family either killed from gun shots or landmines and they do come back. But in caskets, as images like these emphasize the destruction of war and these snaps just show the side effects of humankind's worse anger being shown. In the Article “The Stranger in the Photo Is Me”, Donald M. Murray expresses how harsh it really was in the war and how it changed himself forever and not in a good way. Not to mention, that he describes the way he felt ready to go to war, maybe even excited, but he wishes that horror on no one “I would not wish for a child or grandchild of mine to undergo the blood test of war” as the sacrifice these men and women go through is undeniably tremendous

They carry many things, they carry a massive amount of weight on their shoulders. However, the heaviest thing that they carry cannot be touched. The intangible weight of fear, loss, anger, and guilt far outweigh any tangible item that they could possibly possess. The Thing They Carried is not only an eye-opening collection of war stories, but it is also a love story, a memoir, and a tribute to the unimaginable things that happen to our soldiers in war zones. War changes men, makes them different, and when they come home they are not the same person and they often have trouble readjusting to the life of a civilian.

Upon returning home the soldiers meet a field of new troubles that come with acclimation to society after fighting. Many soldiers come home with skills that are not applicable to their lives and generally a much deeper understanding of what they believe the world consists of. This leads to much disillusion with the world they come back to. In both Ernest Hemingway and Tim O’Brien’s stories, soldiers meet with disillusionment and disconnect from society. The soldiers react in different ways to this feeling; the authors use diction, sentence structure, and figurative language to demonstrate their troubles with acclimation.

In the article Atonement, author Dexter Filkins tells the story of an incident involving a United States marine, Lu Lobello, and the Fox Company battalion. The Fox Company was a U.S. marine unit deployed in the 2003 Iraq war and Lu Lobello was one of the marines in the unit. Atonement captures the painful reconciliation between the military unit and the Kachadoorian family while at the same time informing the American people of the suffering that occurs beyond the battle field. Dexter Filkins utilizes this piece to emphasize the inadequate treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and to highlight the consequences of the ill-defined rules of engagement and their effects upon veterans return to civilian life.

In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien uses the art of fabricating stories as a coping mechanism. Trying to distinguish the difference between fictional and factual stories is a challenge in this book, but literal truth cannot capture the real violence that the soldiers dealt with in Vietnam, only “story truth” can. He explains, “If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made victim of a very old and terrible lie.” (O’Brien 65). The novel illustrates that storytelling is a way to keep the dead alive, even if it may not be a true story.

There are two types of people that fight in wars; those who consider their patriotic duty an honor and those who entered the war by force. In 1990, twenty years after returning from the Vietnam War, Tim O’Brien published The Things They Carried, a disturbing and remorseful collection of short stories that gives detailed, yet fictional, accounts of the horrific events that occurred during the war. Later in 2012, after his tour of duty, Chris Kyle released American Sniper, a humble and passionate memoir that describes what Kyle had to face during his tour. While The Things They Carried utilizes symbolism and similes to inform the reader about the horrors of war, American Sniper uses flashbacks and imagery to demonstrate that some people “come alive” during the war.

The text, ‘The Things They Carried', is an excellent example which reveals how individuals are changed for the worse through their first hand experience of war. Following the lives of the men both during and after the war in a series of short stories, the impact of the war is accurately portrayed, and provides a rare insight into the guilt stricken minds of soldiers. ‘The Things They Carried' shows the impact of the war in its many forms: the suicide of an ex-soldier upon his return home; the lessening sanity of a medic as the constant death surrounds him; the trauma and guilt of all the soldiers after seeing their friends die, and feeling as if they could have saved them; and the deaths of the soldiers, the most negative impact a war

It all began in 2003 when President Bush declared war on Iraq. He declared that, “Now that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force” (Bush). Unfortunately, the war in Iraq became one of the longest and most controversial wars fought by America. Thanks to the sacrifices of the men and women in uniform, the mission ended in 2011. However, this war still lives in the hearts of those that fought for the lives of others. In Soft Spots: A Marine’s Memoir of Combat and Post-traumatic stress disorder, Author, Sargent Clint Van Winkle is one of those men that fought and is still fighting his own mental battle of the pass war. Despite all the uncertainties of whether the war was worth fighting for or not, Sargent Van Winkle favored the War against Terror, because he enjoyed the life of combat, being a Marine and the brotherhood that came along with survival.

“My life is storytelling. I believe in stories, in their incredible power to keep people alive, to keep the living alive, and the dead.” Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, was filled with embellished stories and memories of war veterans. O’Brien’s reasoning for writing that particular book was because he believed that while a memory can die with a person, written words are forever set in stone. In his book, War was every one of the soldier’s enemy; It did not matter which side they fought on. War took men physically and mentally. O’Brien displayed how war stories were based on a certain soldier’s experiences, morals, and personality; Readers never truly knew fact from fiction. O’Brien’s intended audience were readers who were

A “Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemmingway is an intriguing story about a man by the name of Krebs who enlists in the Marine Corps during his attendance at a Methodist college in Kansas. After serving for two years at the Rhine, he returned with the second division in 1919 but Krebs wasn’t in the same state of mind as before he left. The reason why Krebs was so distraught when he returned home was not because of the fact that no one wanted to listen to his war stories but because him and other soldiers were without any real benefits such as medical, education, extra remuneration, or anything to help him get back into the real world. This reason stated is the reason that Krebs and soldiers alike came home from war with nothing to show for

An anti-war poem inspired by the events of the Vietnam War, Homecoming inspires us to think about the victims of the war: not only the soldiers who suffered but also the mortuary workers tagging the bodies and the families of those who died in the fighting. The author, Australian poet Bruce Dawe, wrote the poem in response to a news article describing how, at Californian Oaklands Air /Base, at one end of the airport families were farewelling their sons as they left for Vietnam and at the other end the bodies of dead soldiers were being brought home. Additionally, he wrote in response to a photograph, publishes in Newsweek, of American tanks (termed ‘Grants’ in the poem) piled with the bodies of the dead soldiers as they returned to the

The mental implications of war on the soldiers challenged the way they functioned day to day. In the ‘Next War’ Owen demonstrates the mental implications through personifying death and engaging the responder with sensory imagery.

When people think of the military, they often think about the time they spend over in another country, hoping they make it back alive. No one has ever considered the possibility that they may have died inside. Soldiers are reborn through war, often seeing through the eyes of someone else. In “Soldier’s home” by Ernest Hemingway, the author illustrates how a person who has been through war can change dramatically if enough time has passed. This story tells of a man named Harold (nick name: Krebs) who joined the marines and has finally come back after two years. Krebs is a lost man who feels it’s too complicated to adjust to the normal way of living and is pressured by his parents.