{"id":365,"date":"2012-11-19T16:49:40","date_gmt":"2012-11-19T21:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/?p=365"},"modified":"2012-11-22T07:54:35","modified_gmt":"2012-11-22T12:54:35","slug":"better-than-your-average-war-story-the-things-they-carried-by-tim-obrien","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/?p=365","title":{"rendered":"Better than Your Average War Story: “The Things They Carried” by Tim O\u2019Brien"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Cristen Yakush \u201813
\nEE Staff Writer

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Photo courtesy of BN.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Timothy O\u2019Brien grew up in a small Minnesota town, the epitome of living a sheltered life. He diverged from this isolated lifestyle when he attended Macalester College, where he centered his attention on studying political science. However, in the midst of gaining his education, Timothy O\u2019Brien became caught up in the Vietnam War. O\u2019Brien would attend peace vigils and war protests. Despite his attempts to detach himself from the war, he soon enough found himself standing on the battlefield.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien\u2019s future plans for Harvard University were put on hold when the 22-year-old received the ever-so-dreaded draft letter in the mail. Initially heading towards Canada to avoid the draft, Timothy\u2019s attempt to dodge war seemed like the best choice. Ideal but morally wrong, O\u2019Brien decided against fleeing and began training in August of 1968, followed by his deployment to Vietnam in February of 1969.<\/p>\n

While there, O\u2019Brien wrote stories, narrating and reflecting on his experiences of being at war. Chronologically following his journey, his stories include characters based on his real-life war friends and loved ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cMen killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment.\u201d This quote from the book is one of the most notable and indicates the harsh actuality of being a soldier.<\/p>\n

The Things They Carried<\/em> denotes both heart wrenching and witty experiences, along with the feelings associated in the time of war. Throughout each short story, the inescapable burden of fear is present. These stories contain both fiction and non-fiction and touch on different men\u2019s accounts of personal feelings and grief. In attempt to come to terms with the past, this book is an incredible portrayal of the Vietnam War experience.<\/p>\n

Being a first-hand experience, this book is said to be, \u201cOne of the finest volumes of fiction about the Vietnam War\u201d. This book is a must read to gain insight on the expeditions and realities of being a soldier.<\/p>\n

The Washington Review<\/em> said, \u201cTo say it was successful would be an understatement.\u201d As a reader, I\u2019ve never felt as intrigued and compelled to continue reading as I did while reading Tim O\u2019Brien\u2019s account. Although war is not typically a topic of interest for me, this book demonstrated something more than just the typical war recount. The Things They Carried<\/em> is a book worth reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Cristen Yakush \u201813 EE Staff Writer Timothy O\u2019Brien grew up in a small Minnesota town, the epitome of living a sheltered life. He diverged from this isolated lifestyle when he attended…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":427,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions\/427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}