Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Things They Carried, We Were Soldiers, "In Another Country", "A New Kind of War", "Why
Things They Carried, We Were Soldiers, "In Another Country", "A New Kind of War", "Why
Joseph Ebron
Mrs. Field
LNG 405
10 November 2010
As readers feel the heavy vibrations of their heart, they began to truly understand the
feeling received from a true war story. The misconception of war stories being only physical is
quickly shunned as the content of a true war story makes the readers’ stomachs feel. In The
Things They Carried, We Were Soldiers, “In Another Country”, “A New Kind of War”, “Why
Soldiers Won’t Talk”, and “A Weight Beyond Words”, each author uses a soldier’s emotion and
experiences to give the reader a genuine belief in that story. On the other hand, the media only
shows care towards the political views of war and how it affects this country. The personal
experience through reading the text of a true war story connects each reader to the gut-wrenching
events a soldier endures firsthand. A true war story sinks into the heart of its reader and makes
their stomach believe through chronicling the experiences of the soldier while displaying the
genuine presence of powerful emotion, the strong bonds shared by soldiers, and the gruesome
The usage of powerful emotion in a true war story gives the reader personal feelings
towards the story and each character, resulting in a genuine belief in their experiences. In We
Were Soldiers, the unknown commodities of the war causes the rookie soldiers to develop fear,
as seen on their faces as they first left the secure helicopter for the treacherous battlefield which
was to be their home for an undisclosed period of time. The audience experiences a great deal of
pity for the soldiers and develops hopeful emotion towards their survival. In the article “A
Ebron 2
Weight beyond words”, medic Tyrone Jordan experiences many emotional sights that an average
person could not handle. As he carries a fallen hero in the battlefield, “Jordan's face is fixed with
intensity, his mouth wide open, yelling” (Leland). His outburst of emotion in such a critical time
gives off the notion that his job runs deep into his mind. His emotion shows the reader that this is
important to him and causes the reader to deeply care about the well-being of the fallen hero.
This usage of emotion is not always apparent, as it is in the case of Hal Moore in We Were
Soldiers. His emotion is at a deeper level as he tells his young daughter about the harsh realities
of war. The audience can feel his hidden emotion internally, making them believe in a false
character’s true feeling. The emotional terrors of the battlefield are so immense that it causes
individuals to take their own life, as this is in the case of Norman Bowker in The Things They
Carried. The high level of despair from his experiences in war makes the reader feel the pain he
suffers and develop a belief in the story. War also affects the rest of a man’s life as in the case of
soldier in “In Another Country”. He expresses his great emotion externally as he is “crying, his
head up looking at nothing, carrying himself straight and soldierly, with tears on both his cheeks
and biting his lips…” (Hemingway 972). The weight of the war has really affected him and his
inability to conceal his emotion influences the reader. The title, Why Soldiers Won’t Talk, shows
that the constant emotional experiences of war affect some soldiers to the point that a
recollection of the battlefield tears the fabric of their mind. “So much hurt…” (O’Brien 164) that
a soldier feels develops his emotions toward the war and sways the reader’s feelings in favor of
their emotions. This deep emotion also appears apparent in the tight bonds that each soldier
shares.
In a “true” war story, a bond between soldiers is displayed to illustrate a true relationship
between soldiers and demonstrate how they get through their troubles together. “Army medic
Ebron 3
Tyrone Jordan of Charlotte runs off the battlefield hunched under the weight of a wounded U.S.
Marine he is carrying on his back”(Leland). The bond between fellow companions on the
battlefield is at so high a level that fellow soldiers will do anything for each other. This shows
the reader a genuine relationship between two characters, increasing their belief in the story. In
“In Another Country”, bonds are formed by their meeting at a hospital showing that anything in
common between two soldiers can create a bond. In The Things They Carried, each soldier is
committed to find Kiowa’s body because of the bond they shared in knowing that he would do
the same for them. The bonds soldiers create, such as in We Were Soldiers, center from family to
respect. Major Crandall develops a bond with a young soldier after he experiences war for the
first time. This added respect was shared through a common experience. Also in We Were
Soldiers, Hal Moore shares a bond with a young man who has a family back home. This
connection between the two characters leads to a great relationship that every viewer cherishes.
A heartfelt relationship is also shown as the man with a new-born baby is brutally burnt and the
photographer is asked to carry the message to his wife. This helps the audience view his
transition form an onlooker, to a member of the war. These bonds create everlasting relationships
between all soldiers because of what they have experienced together and causes the viewer to
believe in the “true” bonds that were created. The connections between all soldiers are tied to the
heavy grind they face on a daily basis which adds to the real experience of a true war story.
The imagery used to describe the daily toil of a soldier’s life gives the reader a chance to
see out of a soldier’s eyes which makes the experience more real. The constant rollercoaster of
highs and lows on the battlefield is experienced as a soldier may believe “War is hell… mystery
and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and
longing and love” (O’Brien 76). This constant change in beliefs towards the war that a soldier is
Ebron 4
fighting in makes everyday life tougher. The appearance of a battered psychological state shows
the reader how the daily hardships of war may get to a soldier and how it affects his every action.
In the case of army medic Tyrone Jordan, the challenges of war propels him to carry out his duty
as he “treat[s] a captured enemy fighter wounded…hold[s] the hand of a 12-year-old Afghan girl
grazed in the face by a bullet… cuts through the pants of a Marine injured in the leg by a sniper
attack” (Leland). As the reader views through his eyes, he shows that his daily toil inspires him
to carry out his duty to the fullest. Though war is the toughest experience one can go through,
true strength shows through one’s actions when under much duress. The reader also experiences
the battlefield when the horrifying sounds of war are heard as “The rifles go tacrong, capong,
craang, tacrong, and then a machine gun opens up” (Hemingway 1050). The everyday hearing of
the sounds of war gives the soldier the challenge of enduring another psychological pain. As the
soldier does his everyday tasks, the reader experiences the sounds of war constantly repeating in
that soldier’s mind. The experience of relentless attack by the opposition affects all aspects of a
soldier as “the eardrums are tortured by blast and the eyes ache from the constant hammering”
(Steinbeck 1116). The pain viewed by the reader through the eyes of a soldier displays the
Works Cited
Hemingway, Ernest. A New Kind of War. 1937. McDougal Litell Literature: American
Literature. Evanston: McDougal Littell, 2010. 1048-56. Print.
Leland, Elizabeth. "A Weight Beyond Words." Charlotte Observer. 10 Oct. 2010. Web. 10 Nov.
2010. <http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/10/10/1751365/a-weight-beyond-
words.html>.
O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried: a Work of Fiction. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,
2009. Print
Steinbeck, John. Why Soldiers Won’t Talk. 1943. McDougal Litell Literature: American
Literature. Evanston: McDougal Littell, 2010. 1114-18. Print.
We Were Soldiers. Dir. Randall Wallace. Perf. Mel Gibson and Madeleine Stowe. Icon
Productions, 2002. Film.