Analysis Of The Movie ' The Vietnam War '

The author, Tim O'Brien, is writing about an experience of a tour in the Vietnam conflict. This short story deals with inner conflicts of some individual soldiers and how they chose to deal with the realities of the Vietnam conflict, each in their own individual way as men, as soldiers.

The Vietnam War that commenced on November 1, 1955, and ended on April 30, 1975, took the soldiers through a devastating experience. Many lost their lives while others maimed as the war unfolded into its full magnitude. The book Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam by Bernard Edelman presents a series of letters written by the soldiers to their loved ones and families narrating the ordeals and experiences in the Warfield. In the book, Edelman presents the narrations of over 200 letters reflecting the soldiers’ experiences on the battlefield. While the letters were written many decades ago, they hold great significance as they can mirror the periods and the contexts within which they were sent. This paper takes into account five letters from different timelines and analyzes them against the events that occurred in those periods vis a vis their significance. The conclusion will also have a personal opinion and observation regarding the book and its impacts.

The Vietnam War was a long conflict lasting between 1955 to 1975 between the communist North and the democratic south with help from the United States. More than 3 million people, including 58,000 American troops were killed in the conflict. Tim O 'brien 's short story “The Things They Carried” follows a platoon named alpha company during the peak of the Vietnam war led by first lieutenant Jimmy Cross who is very charismatic but in his mind he is unsure how to lead his squad because his mind tends to wander to a thought of a girl back home. Throughout the story he has overcome with emotions and guilt because he believes he his the reason for some of his squadmates death. “The Things They Carried” Embodies the hardship, reality, and price/toll of war, ultimately Tim O’brien writes this masterpiece as not of a war story, but as a love story and how that love changed a man.

For countless of people today, the Vietnam war is just something from the past, but for Tim O’Brien, the Vietnam War will endlessly be with him. This one year in Vietnam changes the lives of this platoon from emotional pain, physical pain, as well as muscle pain will commence to cloud their vision. The weight of the things that they carried takes great effect on them that they have to continue to endure on this one year trip in Vietnam and remember these memories for the rest of their lives..

During the Vietnam War, these soldiers has shed their blood and sacrificed their future for their homeland, but their government, their society and their families alienates and forsakes them. Unlike any other wars happened throughout the history of America, the reason for United States to get involve in the Vietnam War is to stop the spread of communism, a very simple but also very unreasonable. Instead of volunteer, the majority of the soldiers in Vietnam War were drafted without any prior notice. Hence, before going to war, the soldiers find themselves having a difficult time of trying to seek for a reasonable purpose of going to war. Some people try to escape from the drafting process and stay home or continue their education. Other people, who actually go to war say “’I just want

Wars are a difficult place to be. “THE VIETNAM WAR transformed a generation” (Roberts 1). With all that happened during the war such as exposure to

While the Vietnam War was a complex political pursuit that lasted only a few years, the impact of the war on millions of soldiers and civilians extended for many years beyond its termination. Soldiers killed or were killed; those who survived suffered from physical wounds or were plagued by PTSD from being wounded, watching their platoon mates die violently or dealing with the moral implications of their own violence on enemy fighters. Inspired by his experiences in the war, Tim O’Brien, a former soldier, wrote The Things They Carried, a collection of fictional and true war stories that embody the

The Viet Nam War has been the most reviled conflict in United States history for many reasons, but it has produced some great literature. For some reason the emotion and depredation of war kindle in some people the ability to express themselves in a way that they may not have been able to do otherwise. Movies of the time period are great, but they are not able to elicit, seeing the extremely limited time crunch, the same images and charge that a well-written book can. In writing of this war, Tim O'Brien put himself and his memories in the forefront of the experiences his characters go through, and his writing is better for it. He produced a great work of art not only because he experienced the war first hand, but because he is able to convey the lives around him in such vivid detail. He writes a group of fictional works that have a great deal of truth mixed in with them. This style of writing and certain aspects of the book are the topics of this reflective paper.

The Charlie Company is made up many different types of men in their teens and early twenties ranging from the boys who grew up in upper-class family with a very privileged life to boys that grew up in poor families. Many of these young men never imagined that they would be drafted into the Vietnam War and in turn it would change their lives forever. There were men that voluntarily enlisted into the Vietnam War like John Young. John Young, who was inspired by John F. Kennedy, was attending college when he decided that it was his calling to enlist in the military. John Young served as a squad leader in the 1st platoon. He came to war eager and ready to fight for his country. He thought that he was so smart and skilled that when he gets to Vietnam he will not lose many of his men, but he thought wrong. When he first arrived to Vietnam with his unit it did not take long until he started losing his men. At this time in America Uncle Sam was sending out drafts for young men aged late teens to early twenties to join the war. There was a problem with this draft because if you did not want to go to war you did not have to. Men that went to college did not have to go to war. This caused many people at this time to go to college and get a degree and maintain their grades. Men that were gay or had a doctors note from their doctor saying they were “injured” did not have to go to war either. Men that were

Hundreds of bodies littered the ground. Sounds of explosions and endless gunfire filled the air. Soldiers, with their uniforms splashed in crimson, fought viciously and ruthlessly. Their main objective, which was to win the battle, took a backseat to their newfound desperation to stay alive. After all, war is not a game, especially one such as the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, and left its survivors haunted by a multitude of atrocious events. Terry Erickson’s father and George Robinson, who were two fictional characters from the short stories “Stop the Sun” and “Dear America”, respectively, were veterans of the Vietnam War. The differences and similarities between Terry’s father and George Robinson are striking, and they merit rigorous scrutiny.

Tim O’Brien’s individual response to war and the optics around it have raised a serious controversial debate on the whole issue. Tim O’Brien is particularly concerned with the frenzy and excitement about war and how patriotism and courage are deliberately misconceived in an irrational bid to reinforce this notion of spilling blood. O’Brien has articulated his regrets and despise to the Vietnam War which he strongly believes it was pointless if not an act of cowardice. Having reluctantly joined the war after being drafted by the US government, O’Brien expresses his shame and treats his involvement as a betrayal rather than heroic, as most would have perceived at the time. O’Brien makes a valid argument and therefore, his claims regarding the

For my project, I will create a short movie demonstrating how the Vietnam was so divisive. The movie will be an anti-war film of the life of people in SouthEast Asia. The story will start off as a soldier (Ronnie Campbell), who is in the 1st Infantry on October 16, 1967. Ronnie writes a letter in the barracks, to his family about the divisiveness in the war. This occurs one day before the brutal Battle of Ong Thanh.

Then I notice the third scene, which takes up almost one-third of the whole movie. That is also the dreams that haunted and prompt Folman digging deeper into his memories. In his dream, he and the other two fellow men rising from the yellow colored sea naked and slowly dressed in the dark night with several yellow lighting flares in the sky. Their walking towards Beirut was in silence as though something bad would happen. The film keeps returning to this scene—this surfacing of memory, the rising from the sea of forgetfulness into the core place of the storm, into the deep side of the memory. This is also the sea where that Canan was lying on and witnessing the death of his friends, the water scenes are particularly effective because the sea

Of the films that addressed this subject, the majority seemed to advocate that young men volunteered for the War out of how of duty and loyalty to their nice country. One

During the short film, I found many different things to be interesting. During much of the beginning I feel like the film almost tried to get the audience to feel bad for Finland because the Soviet Union was trying to invade. Tanks were one of the biggest weapons the Soviets had. In the beginning of the war, Finland only had one tank ready to use in war and they were very short on ammo as well. As I moved through the film I realized that Finland really seemed to be doing better than the Soviet Army. They had many different things that gave them a better advantage. The Fin’s had snow cameo where the Russians would really stand out with what they wore. They also had better meals that were full of protein that gave them good energy for battle.