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I
think O'Brien writes in order to make sense of his life and also to others’
deaths. Linda was a symbol of his loss of innocence. When he met Linda, he
experienced love and death at the same time for the first time. In the story,
she delicate and beautiful, she agrees to go with him and his parents to the
movies. But when they saw her balding head and corpse, Linda’s innocence and
O’Brien’s was lost. But unlike the soldiers, Linda didn't do anything to
deserve the dangers she recieved. Linda's death became an inevitability and
sadness a negotiable feeling for him. I say Linda also imagination and
storytelling. Lindawho died of a brain tumor in the fifth grade, shows
O’Brien’s faith that storytelling is the best way for him to talk about pain
and confusion, especially death.

-The lives of the dead pages 225-246
This chapter is about reminesence. The author goes back and remember all of his friends and experiences. The author is reminiscing. The spirits of friends from the army are still very much alive to him. In reality, there are all dead. But in when he tells his stories, they come alive and are smiling. He was in love with Linda when he was nine. And it was real. He is sometimes tempted to label it as a crush, or deep infatuation, but looking back a few decades later, he knows what they felt for each other was a deep and rich as love could ever get. He remembered back in Vietnam when people had died, they had a way of making them seem not so dead. They kept them alive with stories. When Ted Lavender had died, they kept him alive  by talking about how they'd never seen him so relaxed, tranquil and mellow. How it was the bullets but the tranquilizers that blew his mind. Though they tried to keep him alive through stories,didn't it hurt worse knowing he wasn't mellow he was dead? Wasn't there another way of keeping him alive as oppose to commenting on his current state?

Blog entry #2
-A night life pages 219-224
Its interesting how the events happening such as Rat Kiley getting hurt and rumors about the Russian tanks and troops seem so real yet the entire story isn't the exact truth. I wonder, If by teling these stories he's indirectly telling us what really happened suing similar experience, how similar are the events? And how can there be other ways of saying, Rat Kiley Got hurt and Russian troops and machinery build up? "This whole war" he said, "You wanna kow what it is? Just one big banquet. Meat, man. You and me. Everybody. Meat for the bugs." -I wish he would had expanded and went a littler further into elaboration on that sentence before he's shot himself the next morning.

Field Trip pages 181-188
The author Tim had completed his work "In the field" and returned to Vietnam with his daughter to visit the site Kiowa's death. But, how was the experience "In the field" for him? Was it challenging? Tim, the author also looked for signs of forgiveness or personal grace and whatever else the land might offer. if visiting these various places such as monuments, government offices, a model farm outside Saigon and other tourist attractions was for his 10 year old daughter's birthday, why take her to things that wouldn't interest her?  Was it for his own personal gain? He really wanted to take his daughter to places he's seen when he was a soldier. On page 184, TIm is standing on the field where he and his soldiers resided long ago. He remembers everything. He can still hear Kiowas laugh. Was he going too far by jumping into the river? His daughter was quite upset and a little confused. I was a little confused at the end of the chapter when his daughter Kathleen looked out into the field and asked her father, "That old man, ..is he mad at you or something?" Her father answered, "No...Al that's finished now.? What and who were they talking about?

Obviously the soldiers carried a large physical load, however, I think The "Things" in "The Things They Carried" represents the emotional load. After killing that soldier, and the images left in O'Brien's head afterwards was a huge burden on him. He was being weighed down with his own guilt. The author decided to focus on that because of how vital it is that a soldier does not feel sorrow for the people that stand in his way while he protects his country.

"He was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about tweny. He lay with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, his face neither expressive nor inexpressive. One eye was shut. The other was a star-shaped hole."

This is a quote that expresses the notion that although preparing for war has dehumanized him in a way, that he still feels emotion to what is going on. The amount of detail used isn't to necessarily give the reader an image of what he was seeing, but to relay the feeling of guilt that O'Brien feels because of this. And as a result of this guilt, he starts having visions about what this man's life could have been like before he died.

The end of the book was nice.  At times I am still mad that it was not a true story, but when I finished I couldn't help but feel that it was a real story.  Oh well, at least it was a good story, and a good ending.

  The way the book was ended was beautifully done. Throughout the entire book there were times when the book seemed pointless. But the one thing it did was keep my attention. The way his stories were so believable. I was almost heartbroken to hear that the stories were fictional. I started to how could I have been so fooled. The metaphor he uses at the end of book is almost impossible to interpret. At first I thought it meant that the dead never truly die but live on in ourselves. But than I tried to relate to the idea. The thought that he treasured the moments he would slumber so he could the girl of his dreams. She never truly died. He saw it as something that was staged. I tried to relate but really couldn't. I could really thing of emotions. Maybe he was insane, crazy, or just being farfetched. After thinking about the emotions they seemed to add up to love. Love can crazy with thinking about doing things you never dreamed of. It can crazy because at times you can feel like every around is insane when they your crazy in love. The author had a great love for Linda. The only way for him to ever be able to stand living without her was to create a fantasy were she still existed. Once he had perfected it, he put everyone else who had died, and made them become alive once again.

   Everyone has their  own "pond" where they believe anything is possible. It's just for us to look into are hearts and deep into the interiors of our mind to find it.

      two things stuck into my mind the most. Fullfilent and Lost 

   Everyone has the feeling of that something is missing. Many will spend most of their life searching for something they'll never find. Mary Anne Bell was one of those people who luck up and found what their missing. In her case it was the violence, the true essence of fear. She felt at peace when she was with the greenies at night. She feel inlove with the war. I hate for that. I would love to find something that I don't even know that is missing from me.  The passion described in her eyes, and just the fact that she was not oblivious to unknown, makes her a new breed of a person. She had taken on another idea. This would best explain when rat kiley looked into her eyes he did not see the same sweet innocent girl. She had changed in her eyes for the better, and in his the worst. 

    Rat kiley life was perfect, he was inlove. Nothing else matter to him because at the end of the day he would always have Mary Anne Bell to turn to. Once he lost her, a part of him died. This is a true explanation of with every great gain there is a sacrifice. In rat kiley's it was an enormous sacrifice. He lost his soulmate. Its pretty ironic. By bringing her to the war, so she could be closer to him. With each step closer she came to him and the war, she was really moving away. Eventually she crossed the point of return. Now rat kiley is alone. This might of been the true reason for his suicide.

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This book is deadly. I get lost in it, the reflections and the
complexity of it. I mean, seriously, half of the time I get immersed in the
things he writes about. It isn’t just the gruesome stories; it’s the reflection
and how he pulls multiple epiphanies out of these stories. I want to believe
them, but I know better than to believe the stories, and he makes arguments
with no evidence to support it, but it makes some kind of sense. It drives me
crazy, almost literally because I get confused in points that he’s making, but
I kind of get them. The stories themselves show different perspectives of
everyone, like multiple soldiers blaming themselves for the death of a friend
that they couldn’t really help in the end. Plus, no one says anything. Are
these stories really fictional to him or is O’Brien really feeling all of this
and speaking of some kind of reality in his own mind? Because I know that
soldiers don’t always come back right, we had a whole meeting about it and
signs to look for when my Dad came back from Iraq, so is that part of what he’s
telling or can he distinguish between fact and fiction?

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In the chapter Notes I felt
kind of lost, but intrigued by the power of it. O’Brien admits that he adds and
subtract, but it doesn’t change the fact that it makes you feel something.
People couldn’t possibly understand what it is to be a part of a war, and
reading exaggerated stories and painful memories turned into something
substantial doesn’t even begin to unearth what we miss. Even though Norman
Bowker was not a real soldier in a war, or was and had a different story told,
I feel for him just as strongly as I feel for a friend that loses someone they
love. O’Brien showed multiple sides of Bowker that you might not exactly
realize at first, like the hurt he felt by Kiowa’s death even though he mostly
complained and thought about how he didn’t get his Silver Star. It had
repetition that made parts of the story stand out, like the two boys walking
around the lake that he kept passing by and the man who’s boat stalled. He
switched between real life and the story Norman was telling, and it flowed and
clashed at the same time. It was like a poem within a story where you focus
harder and harder and you’re so intrigued by the story within the poem that
tells of tragedy and shame.

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Was
Rat Kiley hallucinating/ going crazy in the chapter entitled, "Night
Life"?

Was
Rat Kiley simply scared of his surroundings and events that occurred during
that time in the war?

When
Rat Kiley shot himself was it intended to avoid "Night Life"?

In
the chapter entitled "The Lives of the Dead", what was the purpose of
the soldiers’ “ritual" of greeting and pretending to converse with the
dead?

The
final chapter "The Lives of the Dead” seems to explain how the stories
within "The Things They Carried" transpired.

In
this chapter O'Brien states, "I had begun to practice the magic of
stories...Some I just dreamed up..." This can somewhat explain how his
stories of the war came about. O'Brien possibly made himself dream on the basis
of things that actually happened, which caused other things to come about.
He may have gotten to a point where he couldn’t distinguish between what was
real and what was a “dream” or made up.

Norman Bowker was introduced in the chapter entitled, "Speaking of Courage." The chapter seemed 

to attribute the cause of Kiowa's death to Norman. However, in the following chapters entitled,

"Notes" & "In the Field", Tim O'Brien discusses how the eventsin that story came about and further

explained what happened. Norman Bowker still seems to blame himself for the death of Kiowa. In the

story it says, "How he had been braver than he ever thought possible...not as brave as he wanted to be." 

 Tim O'Brien speaks of "story-truth" and "happening-truth". O'Brien says, " You pin down certain truths

...you make up others... nonetheless help clarify and explain.  How can readers make the distinction

between the two (story-truth & happening-truth)? Are we supposed to make a distinction?  It's interesting

that Lieutenant Jimmy Cross "Had no military ambitions...preferred to view his men...as human beings."

I would expect a Lieutenant tobe somewhat heartless and continue his job and position without a

halt. Many of the men are caring and selfless, possibly because they've become very cose in the war

and view one another as brothers or relatives. 

What is the significance of the stories within the story?

Why do the stories have so many realistic details when they're untrue?

What does the term "R & R" mean?

What was the significance of the story about the girl and her family who died

when her house burned down?

For the past week we been trying to figure out whats going on below the surface of "The Things They Carried." In class, we discussed whether or not we should believe Mr. O'Brian and his book and if we don't why should it matter. Now this question really stirred up the class. On page 85 ,
Tim O' Brian says , "None of it happened , None of it. And even if
it did happen , it didn't happen in the mountains...And in the end