Things They Carried Hw 1 (pgs. 1-38)

Assignment 1, The Things They Carried

1.      The tangible item that I would choose to carry along with me would be flint. I would choose to carry flint because of its practical use in nature and survival. Flint can be used to create fires by colliding it with other rocks or hard material. When the sparks from the collision hit dry material a fire is created.

 If my goal was to survive in the jungles of Vietnam I know that there would be rivers with water and I could also make improvised weapons out of materials I find. Therefore that would eliminate the need to carry weapons or water and the only thing I would need would be a fire and that’s where flint comes in.

This item would be important to me because it would be my only means of starting a fire. With this fire I could cook any food that I have or have caught, purify and water that I got by boiling it, and I could also use the fire to keep predators away at night. In any survival situation it is very important to have a fire so that would be my main goal.

The intangible item or a memory/thought I would choose to keep with me during this time would be a relaxing and easing memory. The memory that I would choose would be when I was sitting at the beach in Florida and watching the sun set on the ocean. To me this represents relaxation and calmness. When I’m in terrible situations, such as being in the jungles of Vietnam, I would choose this memory to remind me of a happy place that I have been.

 It’s not necessarily that this is an important memory but it’s a memory for me to keep me relaxed and to keep me upbeat even when I’m in the worst situations possible. For example most of the times when you see calendars with pictures accompanying them, the winter months always have pictures of the sun or beaches.  I think they have this on them because it reminds people of summer, relaxation, and it keeps them warm inside.

Assignment 2, Love, Spin

2.      The chapter love most reminds me of the novel that we read in school called All Quiet on the Western Front. Even though the wars were different and the time period was different, both of the concepts were the same. In AQOTWF the men are severely scarred from what they have seen on the battlefield, and most of them have seen good friends die. In The Things They Carried the men can’t get the over the fact that their good friend Ted was killed during battle and both of their lives are altered forever.

I wish that this chapter told more about what actually happened when they were in Vietnam. Instead they talk about brief moments in the war and how their lives are impacted by it. I would rather learn about what happened during the whole course of the battle and then learn what their lives are like now. It’s also only the second chapter so I assume they will explain it shortly.

I couldn’t believe the one part in the account when Ted adopted the puppy and soon after Azar kills it for no apparent reason. To me this part is kind of sick and twisted because I don’t understand why someone would want to kill the dog. He also blames it on his immaturity which is not a sufficient excuse; he is probably messed up in the head from battle if he believes it is ok to murder an animal.

I didn’t know or picture war to be how it is depicted in this story so far. Some of the things they do aren’t things that I would expect people to do in war. For example they play checkers, rain dance, adopt puppies, and injecting tranquilizers for personal enjoyment. In my mind I picture war to be much more serious, and I’m sure it is, than depicted in this chapter. Besides all of the oddities preformed in the chapter there still is the same gruesomeness of war that I thought there would be.