Speaking of Courage

The chapter Speaking of Courage talks about the personal strength and will it takes to live during war. its climax is the death of the moral Kiowa. He is the prominent character throughout the book, who is soft spoken, kind and religious. the fact that he dies in a pile of manure, is a symbol of the theme O'Brien is expressing. O'Brien is avidly expressing hid disdain for everything that courage stands for; everyday the men have to get up and face their fears as soldiers and prepare to die or survive at all cost. Just the mental state that that places them in is an example of the credence and perseverance of thier internal will power. The chapter can also be seen as a way for the soldiers to cope and deal with the guilt of fighting in a war. Since it is set up as a post war story, it also compiles the analizationof two different symbols of characters. While Kiowa is religious and has a set of morals that are held high he dies honorableness, and its ironic that he doesn't survive while others who are "less moral" than he is live on. it also can be seen as a way to force people to deal with the things they generally run from. Fighting as patriots should be an honor for the men, yet they despise the not only the war but everything it stands for. Courage is seen as a macho thing and the fact that the men aren't always in control drives them to personal insanity. O'Brien doesn't like the way courage is portrayed, i feel that he believes that expressing yourself should be a natural part of life. I personally agree but I do feel that if they lost their composure the results would be drastic. Their is a thin line between cowardice and courage and the line is separated based on situations. You can be a coward and still be courageous. Speaking of courage speaks to the truth of the lies hidden within courage.

Memoir Blog

The memoir I read for my blog was “Beyond Tears” by Jina Y. I really enjoyed this short memoir. Reading the title I expected a soppy sob story about a drastic event. Though the blog was short the writer did a good job of explaining and portraying her feelings and view on things. Though I do feel they could have been more descriptive and elaborate. The memoir took a seeming less pointless everyday encounter between a girl and a boy and turned it into a moral lesson teacher. The memoir was also a little funny which made the memoir better. It also contains a little of outside feelings of the writer, but more so inside feelings.

I also like the topic choice of the memoir. The fact that they thought to turn a trivial incident into a memoir is fascinating to me. I fell that this maybe the reason why the memoir isn’t as detailed as others: but because the memoir is based on a simple topic I think it would have helped to elaborate on smaller details.  Overall I feel the memoir was simple short, yet good one.

Vitenam War Blog

The Vietnam War is considered apart Cold War era . It occurred in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Starting on the 1st November 1955  and preceding until April 30^th 1975. This war followed the First Indochina war and was fought between North and South Vietnam. North Vietnam supported by communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the U.S.A (Along with other none communist countries). The Viet Cong also known as the NLF, a lightly armed South Vietnamese communist-controlled, fought guerrilla warfare style against non-communist forces in the region.

The U.S. saw their involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam, and as part of their wider strategy of containing  these communist states. The North Vietnamese government and Viet Cong viewed the conflict as a colonial-war, fought against France (dating back to the 1850’s). They felt that France (backed by the United States) were puppets. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and tripling again in 1962. Operations were spanned throughout international borders and Laos and Cambodia were heavily bombed. American involvement in the war peaked in 1968, at the time of the “Tet” Offensive. After this, U.S. ground forces were gradually withdrawn as part of a policy known as Vietnamization. The Paris Peace Accords was signed by all parties in January 1973, despite this fighting continued.
U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973 a result of the Case Church Amendment, which was  passed by the U.S. Congress Estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from less than one million to more than three million and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict. Some say the U.S involvement in the war was unnecessary and a sign of our meddling ways while others believe that we made the right move and saved the world from yet another communist scare.
The United States 36^th President LBJ (Lyndon Johnson) hit the ground running in 1965.  To avoid the tradeoff between "guns and butter," decisions about the Vietnam War were not highly publicized. But there were several decisions made in 1965 that would "Americanize" the war.
After a Viet Cong attack on American barracks in Pleiku, Johnson ordered reprisal bombings of North Vietnam on February 6, 1965. This was later expanded, on February 21st, into a program of sustained bombing called Rolling Thunder.  In the following month, deliberations led to the decision to escalate the ground war. By June, LBJ gave General William Westmoreland the authority to commit American troops to ground combat operations in Vietnam.