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“Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind” (John F. Kennedy). In the late 1980’s Tim O’Brien began writing a book based of the Vietnam War called The Things They Carried. This included a bunch of short stories, talking of the war and memories. There are three important themes of war, most importantly sacrifice. Sacrifice is the idea of offering yourself to help out others, and that is exactly what soldiers have done. Another term is brutality, which is an act extreme cruelty and also honor which is respect for the soldiers. These are positive aspects of war, because there are soldiers who are sacrificing their lives and going through these scenes of brutality and along the way the are showing signs of camaraderie.
Sacrifice is the idea of offering one’s self to help others, and in context of the war, all of these soldiers sacrifice their lives and leave behind families and their futures to defend our nation. There are many soldiers who can go out there and be ready to fight, but there are still others who are very fearful of fighting.
A stand-out point of sacrifice in the individual is from the movie Forrest Gump. In this movie the main character Forrest gets drafted into the Vietnam War. He is then forced to leave behind his mother who he takes care of, and who he loves very much. He also leaves behind the love of his life, Jenny, who he has grown up with majority of his life. While Forrest was gone, he still wrote to Jenny everyday showing that he still cared. He knew that Jenny was changing, so when he would get a chance to see her, he would. A specific scene is when he goes into a club to watch her sing. While singing a folk song in the nude, a drunken man tries to grab her. This causes Forrest to get very upset at the fact, and goes after the man (Forrest Gump). This whole scene causes an effect on Forrest because he had to sacrifice the things he loved to go to a war that he was forced to fight in. Another example is from The Things They Carried, when the soldiers are on a mountain top and are to spy on the enemies, they are to just sit there and remain quiet the entire time. After a longer period of time, the soldiers begin turning crazy, and believe that they start hearing sounds, voices and even a party (O’Brien 43). These soldiers are sacrificing themselves to try and defend our country, but they aren’t getting the best benefit. Some of them will turn crazy, and won’t be able to even act the same way they were before the war.
When soldiers sacrifice things when going to war, they not only create an effect on themselves but create an effect on society as well. Among many war letters I’ve read, the quote “This is a test of will for our country. We soldiers of yours are doing great and scoring victories in confronting the evil terrorists.” These soldiers are sacrificing their lives for all of us. The families or the loved ones of the soldiers are to worry constantly about what they are doing in war, and weather or not they are surviving it. One day the soldiers cannot just quit war, and quit fighting because then we wouldn’t have all these strong heroes to help us and we would be quite a failure of a country. They suck it up, and do their job, and give everything that they have got, and people of America really do respect that.
Brutality in the sense of war would refer to all the terrible scenes that occur in war. Vast majorities of the way people die in the war happen in very brutal ways.
Coming home from war many soldiers experience post traumatic stress disorder, also known as PTSD. This causes a great effect on the soldiers, because when they come home, they are not the same at all. Rat Kiley was a Vietnam War veteran who had to watch his friend, Curt Lemon die in such a brutal way. They were playing catch, and then all of a sudden Curt gets thrown up into the air. Ever since this has happened, Rat was not the same person he was. It was always on his mind, and for the fact that he tried to contact his friend’s sister and couldn’t get a hold of her, made it much worse on him (O‘Brien 85). After watching Forrest Gump we found out that Lieutenant Dan was a person who many of his colleagues looked up to. He had many past generations who were members of the great wars, and he himself did not want to be a failure. Lt. took very good care of everybody, and didn’t expect anybody to do the same for him. However, when a he crosses a mine, and is thrown into the air, Forrest is there to save him. It turns out that Lt. loses both of his legs from the incident. This changed him forever, because he went from a care-free happy man, to very unhappy, and felt like he has failed himself. He was mad at Forrest for going in there and saving him, because he believed he was to die there in the jungle. Lt. was then crippled for many years and ended up being in a wheelchair for quite a while longer. (Forrest Gump).
Brutality creates a lot for the individual, as much as it creates for society. Bubba was a great friend of Forrest’s and they knew they would do anything for each other. When Bubba dies out there in the jungle, a long with others several others, Forrest knew to take on Bubba’s dream. His dream consisted of being a shrimp-boating captain. For so long, Forrest wouldn’t catch anything, and realized how tough of a dream this was. After getting the hang of the idea, and surviving a terrible storm, his shrimp-boating business became one of the largest. Forrest then gave a share of the earnings to Bubba’s family, creating a huge effect on them because there were people with very little money. (Forrest Gump). Dwight D. Eisenhower said “I hate war as only a soldier who lived it can, only as one who has seen it’s brutality, it’s futility, it’s stupidity.” This quote makes a lot of sense because someone can sit there and say “I hate war.” but in reality only the soldiers, the ones who live through the wars, are the ones who can truly say they hate it. For Dwight D. Eisenhower to say this quote shows that he does have a true strong opposition of the war because he compares it to the men fighting. There are so many others who truly do not believe that the men should be fighting in the war. Brutality of war can also lead to something bad happening to soldiers friends and family. Families of soldiers must go through a lot, because they worry constantly about what is going on, and weather or not they are okay. In several war letters that I have read, so many men write to their families. Whether this is a letter to their mom or dad, or even their wife, the war has changed them. While ending their letters, they make it very brief endings, there is no “I miss you, I love you, See you soon.” it’s more or less a simple name, or a phrase that states “I’ll write again.” I’m sure a reasoning for this is because the men out in war are seeing so many scenes that one I’m sure doesn’t imagine to see in their lifetime.