Thursday, February 28, 2013

What as a culture and as citizens do we owe these people?

I remembered a Somali proverb which says “The hero of someone is the warlord of another” as American citizens these soldiers are our dignity and without them no one would’ve enjoyed the peace that we have today. To other countries they may call them whatever they like but our existence depends on them and a nation without a strong army is not capable of playing an important role and that is the role our veterans play in our being. They should be respected as fathers and provide them everything they may need.

Secondary Research

My paper for The Things They Carried focuses on death and the many different ways the soldiers experienced death. Death is something that is very personal and significant. It changes who you are and the people around you. Not only did these Vietnam soldiers experience death from those who are near and dear to them, but they contributed to death in the war. This is a very conflicting idea to fathom, and it's something that has proven to haunt thee soldier for their entire lifetime.

This is an article from NPR, discussing the process of death and how soldiers typically cope with this. The article has a header that states "No Time To Mourn." I never really thought about how the soldiers are trained to treat death as a procedure. Typically, we take months to get over a death, depending on the individual. Death is something that is more complicated and foreign than it seems. These soldiers have to continue fighting with the loss and confusion lingering in the back of their minds.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18376657

Links to Medal of Honor story and veterans themes

No one wrote comments when I posted this before, but I think it's important to connect our reading to our lives.  So let's do this as a blog homework for this weekend.  Here's the post again:

It is very hard to read about characters like Norman Bowker, Lt. Jimmy Cross, and Tim O’Brien and not wonder about the issues war veterans face today, with so many struggling in the return to civilian life.  
We have to question: 
  • What as a culture and as citizens do we owe these people?  
  • How can we understand their stories and challenges?  
  • How can we learn from them and support them?  
  • Is the system set up for their success or failure?  
  • What can we do to support or criticize that system?  Do we need to do both?  
  • How can we relate or connect on a person level?

None of these questions will be answered deeply without inquiry and listening.  That's the start.

Here are some links.  Let's connect our readings to this world!

Here's the link to some stories and videos about Clint Romesha, who just was awarded our nation's Medal of Honor.  (Yes, the same award that the popular point-and-shoot video game is named after.) 

Please read and listen to these links.

 http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/11/politics/medal-of-honor/index.html?iref=allsearch

http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2013/02/11/clint-romesha-on-the-medal-of-honor-its-not-about-me-it-was-everybody-that-day-up-at-cop-keating/?iref=allsearch

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2013/02/07/intv-tapper-romesha-soldiers-left-behind.cnn

 http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/romesha/battlescape.html


Clint Romesha

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Secondary Research



                In my secondary research I decided to look into why humans share stories in the first place. I believe that this will give me a better idea into the goal of a storyteller, and what they are trying to prove or evoke. I was able o find an article written by Jonah Berger, in a journal from the Association for Psychological Science. Berger states that “the sharing of stories or information may be driven in part by arousal. When people are physiologically aroused, whether due to emotional stimuli or otherwise, the autonomic nervous is activated, which then boosts social transmission. Simply put, evoking certain emotions can help increase the chance a message is shared” (Berger 1). Related to the novel The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, we can see that he shares stories because hey are important to him. These stories are a way to vent his emotions and feelings. Berger also goes on to state that “feeling fearful, angry, or amused drives people to share news and information” (Berger 1). These feeling are probably very relevant in O’Brien’s memories of Vietnam. Possibly another reason he shares his stories, and sometimes very detailed.

 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110630131838.htm

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

secondary research Emily

My topic for my paper is fear. How fear has changed Tim O'Brien in to a soldier, a superstitious soldier, and into a writer. A topic that I believe will help improve my paper is Psychological Warfare in Vietnam. I felt that I needed to dive deeper into what created fear on the battle field besides death. I found from my research that this type of warfare could be the most dangerous. This warfare in the Vietnam war was used on both sides. I feel that I now have concrete information proving there is many types of fear on the battle field. He is a link to my best website I had found during my research. http://www.psywarrior.com/psyhist.html

Monday, February 25, 2013

Secondary Research Derek Purdie

My topic of discussion was about how killing another human being would affect someone. This was a very interesting topic to me (that's partly why I chose to write my essay about it) so I was interested to look deeper into it. I found a site that talked about how the Military trains the soldiers to "dehumanize" their targets to help them not think of them as another human, as well as many other factors about how killing someone is an incredibly powerful thing to deal with for the rest of one's life. I learned a lot from this site and the link to it is below.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heart/themes/prep.html

Secondary Research- Amanda Gooden


I didn’t think there was a lot of secondary research to help me with my theme other than sites like spark notes and cliff notes etc.  I think the best source was http://voices.yahoo.com/tim-obriens-things-they-carried-assessment-146951.html.  This was an assessment page that wasn’t your typical book notes summary.

Secondary Research

My paper is about desensitizing death and I found that soilders are trained to do it as soon as they enter boot camp.  The drill instucters want to break the new recruits' values and replace them with the military's values.  They want to densitize you to killing, it doesn't say why but I would assume that in the long run it would help soldiers feel comfortable with death.  Also it seems that lots of soldiers do it to cope with there surronding setting.

http://www.killology.com/art_trained_methods.htm

Secondary Research- Brandon Brown

Throughout pretty much the entire book, titled The Things They Carried, coping strategies are apparent and show by most all characters. One strategy that was common was humor. Mainly used by Azar, but also used by other members of the platoon, they used humor to deal with the deaths of their fellow soldiers and to deal with other big events such as a first kill. The article, "Positive Reframing, Acceptance and Humor are the Most Effective Coping Strategies", found at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110704082700.htm, reveal that humor is indeed a postitive coping strategy. In the second paragraph, the article states that this strategy, as well as the two others mentioned in the article, is, "helping people to keep up their spirits and feel satisfied at the end of the day". This means that the troops used humor in odd situations in order to keep themselves from feeling down, which is very important during war. When feeling down, as seen by O'Brien himself in the chapter, "The Man I Killed", the soldiers will stall, and for the most part, not be very effective.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Secondary Research

ARE THEY HUMAN OR NOT!

What i find out in my research is many soliders have  commited suicides. soldiers who engage battles in world have got some diesese that its cure can not found. Some of the articles that i have read these illnes that had to do with nervous system and i also found interesting that some of the soilders have shot them selves just Kiowa did in Things They Carried.

Secondary Research Colton

My paper is focusing on the impact the Vietnam war had on Mary Anne Bell and Tim O'Brien.  So my research is focused the mental effects of war. 
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD and shell shock are caused because the brain's attempts to cope with the horrible experiences of war and failings so the solider is forever changed. PTSD causes soldiers to sufferer because they will often recall and re-experience the specific trauma of war, perhaps when they dream, or even when they think or close their eyes.
What soldiers experience during the war changes them and they find it hard to be the same person they were before the war. Some may say that they cannot have close bonds with loved ones because the experience of near death and the fear that they will leave someone behind.
 Throughout the book  it gives examples of people changing because of the war and I'm hoping to use some of this information to make my paper better.

The Emotional Effects of War on Soldiers


Friday, February 22, 2013

Mitchell Marotti secondary research

There were many themes that I found secondary research one. My paper is on emiotial baggae and there are many cuases to this. Like one could lose a friend just as kiowa got killed. A lot of the soliders that fought in vietnam have a lot of disorders.  A perosn may have grief and they just want to get their story out.  this is very common today.

http://www.griefdenied.com/overview.html

Secondary research Anthony

I knew that rituals were more or less common in humans, but I was amazed to find out that animals have types of rituals they perform all the time. For instance, dogs circle where ever they're going to lie down before they lie down because, in evolutionary terms, they are making sure there are no snakes or other creatures in the spot to bug them while they lie down and/or sleep. If animals do it with such passion, what is to say we all don't behave similarly.

http://www.acrwebsite.org/search/view-conference-proceedings.aspx?Id=6258

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Posting questions and link to MLA exercises

Good morning all.

Please do these two things.

First, post your three best interpretive questions so far for the novel to our blog.

Second, complete the writing exercises below.  Follow the link, and you also have this material as a handout.



lYou will need to sign in as a student to access the exercises.  My address is lohre.1@osu.edu so you can sign up.
lUnder Electronic Research Exercises, complete Exercises 29-1(Thesis Statements) and 31-1(Integrating Sources in MLA style).

Post Interpretive Questions in Comments under here

Students, please post your three best interpretive questions so far for the novel The Things They Carried.

Simply include your questions underneath this post by using the Comments feature and that way we will have all our brainstorming questions available in one place here on the blog.

The idea is to share ideas for Essay Two and find a question or thesis idea that we are interested in and think we can write about with good evidence and interpretation for Essay Two.


Thursday, February 14, 2013

Links to Medal of Honor story and veterans themes

 It is very hard to read about characters like Norman Bowker and not wonder about the issues war veterans face today, with so many struggling in the return to civilian life.  We have to question: What as a culture do we owe these people?  How can we understand their stories and challenges?  How can we learn from them and support them?  Is the system set up for their success or failure?  What can we do to support or criticize that system?  How can we relate or connect on a person level?

None of these questions will be answered deeply without inquiry and listening.  That's the start.

Here are some links.  Let's connect our readings to this world!

Here's the link to some stories and videos about Clint Romesha, who just was awarded our nation's Medal of Honor.  (Yes, the same award that the popular point-and-shoot video game is named after.) 

Please read and listen to these links.

 http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/11/politics/medal-of-honor/index.html?iref=allsearch

http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2013/02/11/clint-romesha-on-the-medal-of-honor-its-not-about-me-it-was-everybody-that-day-up-at-cop-keating/?iref=allsearch

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2013/02/07/intv-tapper-romesha-soldiers-left-behind.cnn

 http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/romesha/battlescape.html

Clint Romesha

Monday, February 4, 2013

Clint Difatta-Black Panthers

The Black Panther Party was an African American revolutionary organization, active in the United states from 1966 - 1982. The Party was founded in Oakland, California by Huey Newton, and Bobby Seale. The organization stemmed from another black power group called the Revolutionary Action Movement. Seale and Newton focused on fighting police brutality. Actions like asking the city council to create a police review board were taken, but it is the Black Panthers more aggressive attitudes that have gained them popularity. Fitted in uniforms sporting leather jackets, and load weapons, the Black Panthers took a stand for the safety of the black community from police brutality. The organization peeked in membership around 1970, but declined in the following decade.

An interesting value about the Black Panthers was their form of rebellion. In a time where peaceful demonstrations were popular, the Panthers did business their own way. When peace was not an option, the panthers took the necessary actions to protect themselves and their community. It took much strength and courage  to stand against white oppressors, but it had to be done. Another interesting of the Black Panther history was the ten point program. Although it was an organization that prided itself on bronze instead of brains, there was structure to this group. A set of laws governed this organization. The points illustrate everything from manners, to daily party work. I believe this subject has an incredible amount of value. When demonstration is simply not enough it is time for action. We can now see that in the long run peaceful protest is is more a more desired route of action. Although forceful demonstration has seemed to run its course we can still learn from how this group fought, and why they feel they must have fought that way.


http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/68134/Black-Panther-Party