No Trace

                In Albrook there was a big valley that was full of green trees and nature was abundant. It is recognizable that for that intention it was called Green Valley. This place had never been inhabited by man until progress reached it and its green forest became roads. In the forest there was a small river which inside had a cave in which water didn’t reach because of the flow it carried. This river was the home for many creatures and the water hydrated the animals.

                Before Green Valley became a complex of duplexes full of playing children, the hidden cave was the home of a family of Noriega oppositions that could never leave. This people weren’t brave enough to confront the dictatorship, but they weren’t cowardly enough to leave the place in which their family had lived for many years. The cave was a decent home which will absorb light and was big enough for a small family to live. During the morning they will come out and kill animals for food. They will get wood to make small fires which smoke will be absorbed by the humidity, but the flame wasn’t.

                The US invaded Panama and Noriega was taken out. Panama was still in shambled by this, but Noriega was gone. The family didn’t have any communication with the world so they kept living in the cave. They had become used to drinking water off the stream, using broken coconut shells as glasses; the sweet smell of blood was as good as a CH perfume. The kids had grown as tigers, carefully watching the animals get near the steam for necessity, and then stabbing them with sharp pieces of rocks. They were wild, they were untamed, they were self-sufficient, but they weren’t immortal. When construction started the rocks on top of the cave were flattened by digging equipment and other building items. The roof of the cave broke, making the cave collapse. No one knew of the family, and no one knew what happened to them. Were the old steam stood, there is mansion. Around are a set of duplexes were human families live. No one knows what happened beneath their feet.

Guilt

                In the chapter “The Man I killed/Ambush” the narrator is O’Brian. There is a small difference between the narrations of the two chapters. In “The Man I killed” O’Brian refrains from using the word “I”, as to make the entire chapter about the man he killed instead of himself. In “Ambush” things are very different because the chapter focuses in his point of view and on how he felt and also what happened that led him to kill the man.  Especially in “The Man I killed”, the man that O’Brian killed is described not only by his physic but by his life. Many intimate details as his young life, career, and love life are given my O’Brian even though there is no way for him to certainly know this information.

                O’Brian makes a judgment of the man he killed judging in his appearance and the fact that he is from Vietnam. He generalizes him with other Vietnamese that go into the war because their parents trained them to protect the land. O’Brian feels so responsible for his death that his brain plays the old trick on him in which one over analyzes something and makes it worst for you than how it already was. He is just feeling guilty for what he has done so he makes that guilt even bigger by thinking of how the life that he has ended could have gone. This makes him feel guiltier than what he already is and that is what he wanted to do, to feel guilty because that is what he feels a normal person should do. In a concise way, the details come from his guilty mind.

The Song Tra Bong

                Mary Anne comes to the war as an innocent and sweat girl that is in love with Mark Fossie, a war paramedic in a camp. While the story evolves we learn that the more time she spends in Vietnam the more she changes. She was very refined and she becomes part of Vietnam and very savage, worse than a soldier. She becomes a killer and we know this because she has a necklace which is full of human tongues and she helped in an ambush with the Special Forces. She becomes a killer because all the gore and the war lured her in because it was interesting. She wanted to know more about the war and about Vietnam until she became Vietnam, cold, killer, evil, always doing the opposite you think it is going to do, and she becomes an animal. The main reason why the character that goes through a change is a woman is because it shows how grave the situation is. Also in the time period that war took place people were very sexist and for them the idea of having women in war was considered stupid. Woman are said to be more mellow and less violent which really shows how much Vietnam may change a person—a women to a monster. Also in the past there was a belief that if a woman was a president she will be against war because it was said that women didn’t believe in killing or will never allow violence. This story goes completely against that tradition, showing the opinion of O’Brian that sexism is stupid.

                Rat Kiley is the narrator of this story because it is very likely that if the character O’Brian said the story, the reader will believe that the story is just the reflection of the author’s opinion (author also called O’Brian).  The story told by Rat fits the criteria of if it is a true war story because it is hard to separate what happened to what seemed to happen. Many things in the story can be seen in another way. An example is the disappearance of Mary Anne. All we know is that she was never seen again. What we think happened is that she became part of Vietnam and is walking around the forest, but she could have also been killed. Things like this and many other lead me to think that “Sweetheart in the Song Tra Bong” is a true war story. 

Hurting Peace Back

When O’Brian says “All that peace man, it felt so good it hurt. I want to hurt it back”, he means that peace makes them weak after they have been in so much death and problems. Peace can make them weaker because they became unfamiliar to the problems that they have been thru. Peace is defined in the passage probably as a weakness. A person at peace will probably not survive in a battle field because they will not want to attack other people. Peace can get them out of shape because if they are too relaxed, they may not be in the physical conditions to go back to war. During the war this men were at constant stress and grew unaccustomed to sit down and take a nap. Even in R&R they are stressed knowing that this is just temporal and in short time it will be ripped out of their hands. As many people say, one doesn’t lament what they never knew. By going to a moment of peace after they have been in death and explosions, they are probably going to lament that peace was just temporal.

In the Vietnam War men were obligated to fight for their country without a choice. As said before in the book, they always have to be careful of where they step because there may be a mine that will blow them in pieces. Peace it probably never fully achieved even though they are playing checkers. There is always someone with their guards up because a person may always throw a grenade to their fox-hole.  One of the most horrible things these soldiers experience the change between calm to afraid that even taking a leak you are going to be shot in the head. For these men being in a peaceful place will be great for some time. The problem occurs when they remember that this peace is probably temporal and in short time they will home to go to the battle field were they will encounter more death and fear. This is like giving freedom to someone and when they are starting to discover all the benefits of it, take is away from that person. By hurting is back they are saying that they are going to probably leave it until the war is done for them to never have to feel hoaxed again. 

War Letters

Dear Mom,

                If you just knew how much I miss you; I miss the many hours we watched Hawaii Five-O and Criminal Minds together, the jokes, the sarcasm. I miss the long and private conversations that we will only have in the gray Montero with a Dismay plaque and with the name Mickey. I miss how the name of the car will change to Mini when we went off-road and the car will start skating, only because you never remembered to turn on the AWD. I miss how I will make a chocolate shake and I will offer you one but you will say that it will do you bad to the stomach. How you will take my glass and drink half of the liquid even thought I offered to prepare you one.

                I am sure that you are praying for me from Panama, in the house that never was too big but never too small. Nick is probably now only another small china pot on a shelf. I hope that things have be quiet and relaxing at home. I know you will not believe me but here it is also very calm. The only thing we do all day is to march around some woods. We have never seen an armed opponent. We only carry some assault riffles if something happens but the only reason they have us here in war is for us to walk around with guns to scare others. I know you heard in the news that Francisco died. I know you are scared that the same thing will happen to me but he didn’t die as you think. He got malaria because the idiot forgot to drink his pills. I drink the pills every day so I am not in danger of getting sick.

                Mom, I am sure you are scared of my safety but I can assure you that I am coming back in one piece and you are going to be so proud of me when I obtain a bunch of medals. After this is all over I am leaving the army and will become a lawyer, have a calm job. I appreciate that you are scared of my safety but I know how to take care of myself. I am not the boy that grabbed an umbrella and jumped down the wall thinking I will fall gently as Marry Popping.  In some months I will be sent back home for some vacation in which all the things that we used to do together will be resumed. We will go to the double decker in London, go to South Africa—I will ride and ostrich as I always wanted—, go to Alaska, we will do anything he always wanted to do. This is a promise and I will not break it.

Sincerely, Harmodio

                I chose to write to my mother because she is the closest person I am in my family. She is the person that I can tell everything and she will accept it. With my dad there are many things that I can’t tell him because he is very closed-minded. I can’t tell him ant idea I have because it is very likely that he will disprove it or tell me to do what I want—which means don’t do it. I have decided to not share a lot of information about what really is happening in the war but about the past or about the future. Also I tried to reassure Mom that there is no risk at all to try to make her feel better. Information as the real reason of why one of the soldiers died was hidden to try to convince my mother that there is no risk. Most information about the war is omitted. I know that my love ones are going to know that it is a lie but it is still better to omit such information.

The Things I carry

               We carry lots of things every single day. Some are heavier than others. Some are more important. What we carry depends on different factors. Sex and beliefs are things that change a lot what we carry. A woman is most likely to carry lipstick and super thin Kotex®. A man’s items are changed because of machismo and other things. A man may carry a pocketknife, thick watch. Other men may carry condoms with them. Your age change what you carry too. As an infant one carries, sweeping thru the floor, their beloved blanket. Until six my now-to-small, thick, hot blanket with a picture of the Hunchback of Notre Dame—a movie that I have never seen— will be my cape, my tent, my shield in courageous battles against dragons… overall, my friend. The things I carry have changed a lot. Toys and videogames aren’t anymore in a bag that I took everywhere. Pokémon DS games that followed me are now in a shelf accumulating dust.

               I carry many things with me wherever I go, even thought in the moments I most need them I don’t not carry them. In my school backpack I carry my notebooks in which all my annotations and information are guarded. I carry either my iPad or laptop .The iPad is used in days were it is least likely to work in an important computer document and to be able to have something lighter. My laptop is used for things that need something more helpful than an iPad. With my laptop I am able to do more than one thing at the same time and do more complex things as big documents, projects, or running applications such as Wordly Wise. I also carry my blue and sharp pocket knife. The only reason I have it is because my old one broke in pieces and I needed one for a camp. Walking through a cheap store I saw a pretty blue, foldable knife that had a price of five dollars. My old one used to cost twenty dollars and will never be as good as this one. I carry my wallet everywhere because my mother is sure that one day I am going to go to school and come back home in a body bag. It doesn’t matter if it is to sleep or to go to the movies, I have to have about three different insurance cards— Assa, Metro Blue, CSS. I carry my cell phone which everyday is more a burden because it obligates me to talk with people I do not want to talk to. My phone will ring in the most unexpected and interrupting times, making be receive angry calls from my parents telling me I am lazy, from my mom making sure that I haven’t died yet, my grandfather wanting me to arrange a taxi, people that should understand that if eight times I close their calls they are to stop calling, and most-than-all calls from different services mad because my father hasn’t paid and costumers of my father saying that his workers are fooling around.

               From this list one of the items that I carry voluntarily is my pocket knife. It probably isn’t allowed in the school but also other classmates have little Swiss. It stays taking a nap in my locker at the start of the day and travels home with me in my bag. It is their as a tool that can be helpful at all moments. In the bus the driver needed a tool to cut something for his son, another bus driver, and my pocketknife was ready to do its function. It makes me feel safe even thought months have passes since the last time I sharpened the blade, know it is dull and the only thing that still cuts is the point— which has served as a screw driver because I am too lazy to go down stairs and get one. She has been my friend for a long time now— she because she reminded me to something Jeremy Clarkson in Top Gear said about three cars (three knifes I had) and how he described them (for me that knife was like the Aston Martin Rapid he was talking about). I do not take it absolutely every were because of the nature of the item, but it follows me to many locations.

               An item I didn’t mention but I use everyday are my glasses. I am completely blind without them. It will not be surprising if I followed another person thinking it was my mother—once even a car (In my defense she was wearing red which happened to be the color of the sedan). If I do not have them on I feel helpless and probably will not do a good job compared to if I was using my glasses. I am able to see objects that are close but it still makes me dizzy to read without my glasses. I need my sight to do every action. I never have left my glasses home because it has become an instinct for me to grab them every morning when I wake up. As you can imagine they are all twisted and broken by the time I get other glasses— which most of the time have the same ache. They are my partner were ever I go and they feel the same pain as I do when I am shot with a dodge ball in the face. They have survived punches, kick, falls, mud, water, sea water, more falls, scratches, and even more falls. They have survived more than my body that lately has been broken or injured week after another. When I was small I hated to use them because the disadvantage of wearing glasses and being the first in your third grade class is to be annoyed every single day of my existence and even today some four-eyed joke—a joke I don’t not find very funny— appears. As the maps that Jimmy Cross caries, without my glasses I will not know where to go.  

What do I know of the Vietnam War

               I have heard the name Vietnam War lots of times, yet I still didn't know anything about it. For me I didn't need a reason to accept or deny if the war should have happened. I will never say that and I know that wars like this happen because us humans tend to be inclined to violence and to do wars for the most ridiculous of the reasons: color, religion, beliefs, among other. As other classmates did to fill a little space of the chart about what he know form the Vietnam War, I only wrote that it took place in Vietnam and the U.S. was involved. Today things were different because we learned something about the Vietnam War—more than any history teacher had taught me.

               I learned why there was such a big fuss about the Vietnam War, people knew what has really happening because they could sit and see through TVs the killing that was taking place. Because people didn't want to enlist in the army and fight, there was a raffle by birthday in which the winner of the raffle has to participate in the war. Poor and middle class young men were the ones that were most likely to have to enlist because the rich could afford to go to college (if you were in collage you don’t have to enlist) or to move to Canada were they were safe. Many young men that could have a good future were sent to die in front lines. For the first time in many years people really knew what was happening in the battle field instead of the propaganda given by the government.

               The saddest part for me was to learn that the only reason why this war took place was because Vietnam was dividing into a capitalist part and into a communist part. The leader of the communist part, Ho Chi Minh, was very nice and liked by the people but the leader in the capitalist part was a dictator that did what was good for him. This made the communist party stronger because more people of the capitalist side moves to be free form dictatorship but were allowed to practice their believes, no need to convert to communist. The U.S. got involved in this war because they thought communism was horrible and they couldn’t permit another country to practice this. This is caused by the domino effect belief that if Vietnam practiced communism everyone will start practicing communism. At the end most of Vietnam joined to attack the U.S. and used guerilla warfare to win. The U.S. retreads at the end because it was costly and say that it was helpless.