Final Paper:
Through the reporter’s eyes and actions in the movie “We Were Soldiers” by Randall Wallace, the stories of Mary Anne in “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” and Rat Kiley in “Night Life” becomes alive. In Tim O’Brien’s book called “The Things They Carried”, these stories showed us that war was terrible and how these soldiers dealt with it day in and day out. Some soldiers carried things everywhere they went, so they can feel that ray of hope that everything was going to be ok and that they were going home in one piece. Or in this case, the reporter carried his camera for the people at home, so that he can tell his and many other soldiers their stories. But other times, the reality of war became too real for them to even handle or even talk about.
In the story “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”, Tim O’Brien portrays a story about a loving, young girl that has met up with her boyfriend at war and later became a figure or a story among the trees and the mountains of Tra Bong. Mary Anne was so curious on what these soldiers did that she became one herself, but in a different way. She started to hang out with the Greenies and going on ambushes because she wanted to “…swallow the whole country-the dirt, the death-I just want to eat it and have it there inside me…When I’m out there at night, I feel close to my body, I can feel my blood moving, my skin and fingernails, everything…” She wanted to feel that, so it drove her to her insanity. She started to wear fingers, tongues, and other body parts of her victims and tried to justify that it wasn’t bad. She had convinced herself that in order to feel close to herself, her victims, and the land she must wear the body parts of her victims. It became her own “…powerful drug: that mix of unnamed terror and unnamed pleasure that comes as needle slips…she wanted more, she wanted to penetrate deeper into the mystery of herself, and after a time the wanting became needing, which turned then to a craving.” She had become an animal. Along with Mary Anne, Rat Kiley begun to change in so many ways as a result of the war.
The gore and so much death caused Rat Kiley to lose it. In the story “Night Life”, he began to talk about him seeing bugs that were mutants coming for him and whispering his name; he developed a habit of scratching his arms and picking the scabs and scratching the open sores, and he began to see how his friends and him would look dead. I guess because of Rat being a medic and seeing all these dead bodies day in and day out, it were bound to happen. Even soldiers have a limit on what they can handle and that was the limit for Rat. He couldn’t face war anymore. War was altering his mind and his personality and he wanted it to stop. So, he doped himself up and shot himself in the foot.
I believe that the reporter in the movie “We Were Soldiers” resembled Mary Anne and Rat Kiley. Although he wasn’t a soldier just like Mary Anne, he became one just by living with them and suffering with them. Originally, the reporter went to Vietnam to get pictures to tell the story of the soldier’s struggles and suffering. Throughout him being there, he met friends and took pictures. But eventually he started to pick up a gun to protect himself. After he saw his new friend get burned and his skin coming off, I think that was his turning point. He didn’t go crazy like Rat Kiley, but it drove him to do what he came to do in the first place. His purpose for being there in the first place started to have meaning that didnt happen before. The deaths and the suffering became his motivation to get home and to tell his story. But, all in the end he didn’t know or how to tell his or the others story. He had turned his back towards his fellow colleagues because they had no clue on what it was like in Vietnam. They could of ask him how it was, however it would of been just words. Nothing in the world could even express what had happen to him and others. That is why at the end of the movie when his colleagues came over to take pictures of their own and had asked what is wrong with him, he had nothing to say; there was too much to tell.
Through the reporter’s eyes and actions in the movie “We Were Soldiers” by Randall Wallace, the stories of Mary Anne in “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” and Rat Kiley in “Night Life” becomes alive. In Tim O’Brien’s book called “The Things They Carried”, these stories showed us that war was terrible and how these soldiers dealt with it day in and day out. Some soldiers carried things everywhere they went, so they can feel that ray of hope that everything was going to be ok and that they were going home in one piece. Or in this case, the reporter carried his camera for the people at home, so that he can tell his and many other soldiers their stories. But other times, the reality of war became too real for them to even handle or even talk about.
In the story “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”, Tim O’Brien portrays a story about a loving, young girl that has met up with her boyfriend at war and later became a figure or a story among the trees and the mountains of Tra Bong. Mary Anne was so curious on what these soldiers did that she became one herself, but in a different way. She started to hang out with the Greenies and going on ambushes because she wanted to “…swallow the whole country-the dirt, the death-I just want to eat it and have it there inside me…When I’m out there at night, I feel close to my body, I can feel my blood moving, my skin and fingernails, everything…” She wanted to feel that, so it drove her to her insanity. She started to wear fingers, tongues, and other body parts of her victims and tried to justify that it wasn’t bad. She had convinced herself that in order to feel close to herself, her victims, and the land she must wear the body parts of her victims. It became her own “…powerful drug: that mix of unnamed terror and unnamed pleasure that comes as needle slips…she wanted more, she wanted to penetrate deeper into the mystery of herself, and after a time the wanting became needing, which turned then to a craving.” She had become an animal. Along with Mary Anne, Rat Kiley begun to change in so many ways as a result of the war.
The gore and so much death caused Rat Kiley to lose it. In the story “Night Life”, he began to talk about him seeing bugs that were mutants coming for him and whispering his name; he developed a habit of scratching his arms and picking the scabs and scratching the open sores, and he began to see how his friends and him would look dead. I guess because of Rat being a medic and seeing all these dead bodies day in and day out, it were bound to happen. Even soldiers have a limit on what they can handle and that was the limit for Rat. He couldn’t face war anymore. War was altering his mind and his personality and he wanted it to stop. So, he doped himself up and shot himself in the foot.
I believe that the reporter in the movie “We Were Soldiers” resembled Mary Anne and Rat Kiley. Although he wasn’t a soldier just like Mary Anne, he became one just by living with them and suffering with them. Originally, the reporter went to Vietnam to get pictures to tell the story of the soldier’s struggles and suffering. Throughout him being there, he met friends and took pictures. But eventually he started to pick up a gun to protect himself. After he saw his new friend get burned and his skin coming off, I think that was his turning point. He didn’t go crazy like Rat Kiley, but it drove him to do what he came to do in the first place. His purpose for being there in the first place started to have meaning that didnt happen before. The deaths and the suffering became his motivation to get home and to tell his story. But, all in the end he didn’t know or how to tell his or the others story. He had turned his back towards his fellow colleagues because they had no clue on what it was like in Vietnam. They could of ask him how it was, however it would of been just words. Nothing in the world could even express what had happen to him and others. That is why at the end of the movie when his colleagues came over to take pictures of their own and had asked what is wrong with him, he had nothing to say; there was too much to tell.
posted by Camille at 2:24 PM
1 Comments:
C,
You give some good details and use pertinent quotes when you talk about the two stories from TTTC. That's good. I also like that you show the turning point for the reporter in the movie. That's well-thought out.
One thing to owrk on is the coherence of the opening, but overall this is good work.
CK
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