`` If I Die ' By Tim O ' Brien

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 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.

(O’Brien 152). The reader is constantly second guessing themselves. This experience allows one to relate to the feeling of the soldiers, one of constant wondering, “Is this alright?” and/or “What am I fighting for?” Thus, the soldiers experiencing the paradoxical nature of war in this story is mirrored and experienced by the

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 beginning chapter, O’Brien rambles about the items the soldiers carry into battle, ranging from can openers, pocketknives, and mosquito repellent o

To O’Brien, both the Vietnam War and the Korean War were quite similar, as in both a simulated line separated a country while the same-race people killed each other (61). Death is inevitable in war, however, with fear comes the choice to be brave or to be a coward. O’Brien gives an example of bravery when he depicts how Arizona charged out on the field. Win or lose, bravery is partly defined in the charge: when one man puts his own life out on the line for a fellow soldier (134). While Arizona may have been shot that does not make him any less of a hero. He made the decision to humble himself for the sake of other people’s lives. He made the decision to be courageous in a time of need. At the beginning of the novel, Tim O’Brien thought that courage could mean just going to war, instead of fleeing. However as the war started to change him, he grew and learned what it truly meant. Major Callicles, Battalion Executive Officer, argued that courage was not about waiting around or hoping things will get better. Bravery is about is about going out, doing your best, and making things better yourself (200). Towards the end of the novel, Tim O’Brien realized that whether someone believed in the war or not, bravery means not backing down, chiefly when it happens to be sheltering your own

“If I truly believe the war is wrong, is it then also wrong to go off and kill people? If I do that, what will happen to my soul?” (pg 60). Tim O 'Brien is an American man who was drafted into the Vietnam War. O 'Brien is not a violent man and struggles because he believes that the war is wrong. He debates whether or not he should go to war or move to Canada to avoid the draft. Tim O 'Brien decides to join the army. O 'Brien uses his personal experiences as a foot soldier in the Vietnam War to convey his possible bias perspective that the Vietnam War was a waste of people 's lives and a shameful venture for the United States.

He calls himself a coward for going to war which sounds very weird. The quote means it is very hard to be brave during a war like Vietnam. Since the author turned in to a coward right when he was on the edge of the border, this quote relates well to this story.

Tim O'Brien is confused about the Vietnam War. He is getting drafted into it, but is also protesting it. He gets to boot camp and finds it very difficult to know that he is going off to a country far away from home and fighting a war that he didn't believe was morally right. Before O'Brien gets to Vietnam he visits a military Chaplin about his problem with the war. "O'Brien I am really surprised to hear this. You're a good kid but you are betraying you country when you say these things"(60). This says a lot about O'Brien's views on the Vietnam War. In the reading of the book, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Tim O'Brien explains his struggles in boot camp

The short story that will be discussed, evaluated, and analyzed in this paper is a very emotionally and morally challenging short story to read. Michael Meyer, author of the college text The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, states that the author of How to Tell a True War Story, Tim O’Brien, “was drafted into the Vietnam War and received a Purple Heart” (472). His experiences from the Vietnam War have stayed with him, and he writes about them in this short story. The purpose of this literary analysis is to critically analyze this short story by explaining O’Brien’s writing techniques, by discussing his intended message and how it is displayed, by providing my own reaction,

Most authors who write about war stories write vividly; this is the same with Tim O’Brien as he describes the lives of the soldiers by using his own experiences as knowledge. In his short story “The Things They Carried” he skillfully reveals realistic scenes that portray psychological, physical and mental burdens carried by every soldier. He illustrates these burdens by discussing the weights that the soldiers carry, their psychological stress and the mental stress they have to undergo as each of them endure the harshness and ambiguity of the Vietnam War. One question we have to ask ourselves is if the three kinds of burdens carried by the soldier’s are equal in size? “As if in slow motion, frame by frame, the world would take on the old

"Speaking of Courage" in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, is more than a story about a soldier's personal experience of the Vietnam War. It is more than a story about his fight for his country, God, and fellow soldiers, and not to mention his return home. "Speaking of Courage" is not only an allegorical story about the disconnection between Vietnam and the rest of the world, but also an allegory about the disconnection between the soldiers and the life they once led.

Clearly, as demonstrated by Arizona, one of the soldiers killed, an important element of courage is not to back away from challenges. Arizona did not hide when his troop was being attacked, but instead, he followed his captain in pursuit of the enemy, but unfortunately, he was shot. This concept of not backing down is further supported on pages 134 and 135, when O’Brien talks about one of his experiences with a bully as a young boy in middle school. O’Brien was pushed out of the line by a bully while he was waiting for the school bus, and though he was puny compared to the bully, he stood up for himself. The bully announced there was going to be a fight between him and O’Brien on Monday.

When intrinsic motivation contrasts with a culture’s norm, the individual often feels unable to express their own beliefs. In Tim O’Brien’s book, The Things They Carried, O’Brien recounts the time he was deployed to the Vietnam war to fight for the United States. As O’Brien reflects on his younger self “On Rainy River”, he reveals his old feelings of fear and resentment towards war. O’Brien uses daunting imagery to describe the scene,“I remember the rage in my stomach...I felt paralyzed. All around me the options seemed to be narrowing, as if I were hurtling down a huge black funnel, the whole world squeezing me tight...Moreover, I could not claim to be opposed to war as a matter of general principle” (O’Brien 40-41). The author uses somber

O’Brien tells a story about Major Callicles, which is the executive officer of the battalion O’Brien works for as a typist. Major Callicles is a 44-year-old with a hard head built around discipline. Major Callicles shows O’Brien what it takes to have guts and makes an example out of O’Brien to the battalion. Many of the others see Major Callicles as crazy and the type of guy that is going to get people killed, etc. O’Brien sees this side of the Major, but he also respects the Major due to the fact that nobody else has had the kind of inspiration, motivation and dedication impact that the Major has had on him. Major Callicles talks a lot about courage and it even starts out with a quote from Plato saying, “that courage is

Tim O’Brien, in his collection of short stories called “The things they carried”, develops the theme of soldiers ‘carrying’ many burdens throughout their lives. Through his persona, also named Tim O’Brien, O’Brien contradicts the stereotypical reason as to why the men joined the war. Jimmy Cross explores the unwanted burden placed on a Lieutenant of the platoon member’s responsibility. Further O’Brien explores the affect of the Vietnam War on the soldiers on their wellbeing through Norman Bowker, who suicides as he is unable to deal with the memories and the pressure faced due to the war. the emotional burden from the memories, physical weight ‘humped’ by them during the war and the mental pressures enforced upon them are the different