Tim O’Brien Response

(One Last Picture Together)
(My Good Friend Declouette)

I don’t know anymore what it’s like to read, hear, or see a military movie without making some type of connection to it. I remember when I was little, watching old war movies with my great grandpa who was a WWII veteran and just thinking to myself how “cool” it would be to be that hero and do the things they did in the movie. I would play soldiers with my friends pretending to shoot each other and blow things up. Another great book to read if you liked Tim O’Brien’s book is “Generation Kill”; this is a true story about a Rolling Stones reporter who spent time embedded with the 1st Recon Marines in Iraq. This book has also been made into a TV series, which you can watch the episodes here at (http://tv.blinkx.com/show/generation-kill/twvGGjYbrdaAE0rD#s1e6)

But the first time I was away from home was when I realized the truth about war. An unfamiliar place, away from my family and my friends I grew up with, away from the security of home, listening to blasts in the background, watching new friends die, whom would never see their loved ones again. This is when reality hits you like a freight train, and an eighteen year old turns in to a mature adult in a matter of minutes. The first story told in “The Things They Carried” written by Tim O’Brien brought back these memories as if these moments were happening just as I read them and the feelings I felt during those times. When 1st Lt. Jimmy Cross is being described, carrying letters from a girl, I could remember carrying letters from my girlfriend back home and how no matter how many times you’ve read that letter you read it over and over again.

Daydreaming about fun times and making up new ones, trying to forget where you are. As I read the description of the equipment it brought back memories of what I had to carry and what was issued to me, I can remember what the weapons weighed and even how much my equipment weighed. Every war is different in its own way just as every book is written differently, but even though every war is different there are many similarities. Every soldier no matter when they have served will always treat another as a friend, as a brother or sister, and will always be there for each other. As I read this story I felt the soldier’s pain, his sorrow, his fight to remember the good times over the bad. But because you’re a soldier you will never forget your duties and what you must do not only for your survival, but for your fellow soldier’s as well.

The first paragraph of “Love” on page 26 he is talking about all the things they still carried through their lives like old photos. Photos are the one thing everyone wants to have when trying to remember their past, but for a soldier these things can bring happiness just as quickly as they can bring back the horrors of the past. I have photos which I will never part with, but will hardly bring them out to look at, they are things in which are better left untouched until the right moments in which they are needed. Soldiers confide in each other and this is why not too many will speak about what they have gone through to anyone but a soldier. It takes a great deal for a soldier to open up to others and tell their story, this is something my wife has had to deal with throughout the years.

The next chapter, “Spin” talks about remembering the good times and states “The war wasn’t all terror and violence.” This is a very true statement because a strong soldier will remember the good times, the times in which your friends made you laugh so hard you cried and this is what makes you feel human. My good friend SSgt Travis Griffin was great at making you laugh when you were down and was always there when you needed someone to talk to. Travis was killed in Iraq by an I.E.D. two weeks before returning back home, not a day goes by I don’t think about him and what could I have done, how could this have changed. But, then I think about how much of a positive impact he made on so many soldiers’ and how his teaching and his spirit will always go on, a lot longer than he could have ever imagined.