Will Ones Surrounding Affect One's Life

O’Brien juxtaposes his first encounter with death versus his encounters with death as a soldier in the quote: “...in the spell memory and imagination... I’m gazing into some other world, a place...where there are no bodies at

In the essay O'Brien is faced with a conflict, a moral dilemma. He had to decide whether he was either going to go to the war and fight or was he going to run away and avoid the draft. The relationship he had with Berdahl was not of friends or even regular acquaintances. Rather they were perfect strangers. That goes to show you that anyone can be a major influence on your life. Berdahl helped to open O'Brien's heart. He realized who he was and where he had come from, his past and what he has been through. How all the events of the past helped him to become the person he was right now. How his past helped form his personal identity.

O’Brien has struggled with coping with horrific war memories like fellow member deaths, poor conditions, and being forced to fight a war that he doesn’t believe in fighting. He is still reflective of certain actions that he had taken that he wishes he could have done different for the better.

Furthermore, O’Brien himself admits he went to war not out of courage, but out of embarrassment and cowardice. In the chapter “On The Rainy River,” O’Brien received a draft letter for the Vietnam War. He was in shock, “I was too good for this war. Too smart, too compassionate, to everything. It couldn’t happen. I was above it. A mistake, maybe—a foul up in the paperwork. I was no soldier… I remember the rage in my stomach. Later it burned down to a smoldering self-pity, then to numbness” (41-42). Obviously, O’Brien did not want to go to war. However, he was

O’Brien fought in the war and named his fictional character after himself. It is the truth of his real life juxtaposed to the truth in his

The novel itself is a flashback to the pass of a nightmare that he will never forget. O’ Brien is still alive, I cannot imagine having flash backs to the past and being reminded of a frightening nightmare. The best flashback in the novel reads “his right arm was gone… At his face there were already many flies and gnats.” O’Brien then revisits his childhood: “Linda was nine then, as I was, but we were in love…. she died of course. Nine years old and she died.” This situation in the time of war brought him to think of someone he truly loved. Flashbacks are

O’Brien was confused about death when his girlfriend died, he felt so strongly for her even at a young age. He would daydream about her and this kept her alive in his mind. He realized that storytelling and imagination could keep the dead alive. The way he deals with her death helps him to deal with death during Vietnam and later the stories help him to deal with the difficulties he’s had in life.

There are times in our lives in which certain events change a part of us, either emotionally, physically or mentally. In our own meaningful way, we have a storm like O’Conner, in which we go through an impactful change.

O'Brien gives his characters lives outside the story and dedicates his fiction to their memory. In On the Rainy River, for example, O'Brien writes that he never really thanked the old man

The whole time during this book O'Brien is talking about him thinking about how the war isn't right, how he shouldn't be in Vietnam, how the US shouldn't be in Vietnam, but, he cannot

Another way that the author benefited from this change in environment was his academic performance. Before the author did not perform well in school and was not that interested in it. The author himself writes “ Just how military school had slowly grown on me, so had academic life” (130) This change in the authors mentality subsequently came from the positive change in the environment in which he was in. Contrary to the way the author’s old environment made him feel; which was a very negative way not performing well in school and getting into trouble.

Throughout the chapter of Ghost Soldiers, O’Brien objects vengeance but is confused by acceptance through morbid imagery, vindictive tone, and an unexpected shifts of inner thoughts to illustrate unity even after a mistake was made in the warzone. O’Brien begins to tell when Rat Keiley was the medic for their group. He describes getting shot and Keily coming to treat O’Brien. Afterwards, he begins to thank Keily for saving his life, and for making him feel completely better. His wounds needed to be healed, so he took about 1 month off, but once he returned, Rat Keily was wounded and sent off to heal.

Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons.” (38). The fact that O’Brien hates this war so much is just one of the reasons that sparked his plan to evacuate to Canada. He just simply doesn’t believe that there is a unity of purpose when it came to history or law. This leads into the beliefs he has when it comes to politics and how he claims he is politically naive, as well as being a liberal. But hate isn't the only characteristic shown. O’Brien displays how fearful he is as well.”It was a moral split. I couldn’t make up my mind. I feared the war, yes, but I also feared exile.” (42). He explains that he didn’t want to just leave his family and friends and he feared losing the respect of his parents.Law and ridicule was feared as well

Everyone is affected by the environment they grow up in. Not everyone will have the same opportunities in life because of where they live. Similarly, the setting influences characters into their decisions and beliefs. The setting is a major factor in how the characters make their decisions.

In Tim O’Brien’s book If I Die in a Combat Zone, he argued that the Vietnam War was an immoral war without a reason for being fought, he conveys his message by stating that the people who fought in the war did not know what we were truly fighting for, and that humans should value each other’s lives because we know right from wrong, also through his depictions of the atrocities that were carried out by the American Soldiers, and how the American government sent men to Vietnam that were did not have the mentality to kill another human. One of the reasons why he believed that the Vietnam War was wrong was because he believed that humans, as a species, should have learned to not partake in wars because we understand right from wrong, and therefore