Preview

Box Me Up And Send Me Home Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
565 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Box Me Up And Send Me Home Analysis
Influences of War The Vietnam War had different effects on many people. It affected people at home and obviously greatly affected those who were fighting in Vietnam. An excerpt from Everything We Had by Al Santoli and Beginning and Arrival, excerpts from If I Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Send Me Home by Tim O’Brien, are memoirs that explore the effects and influences of war on two young men. Tim O’Brien wrote about his own experiences in the war, and in the piece of work by Santoli, he tells about the events of a soldier named Robert Santos. These men are quickly shaped and molded by the war and the people there. Because of their youthfulness and lack of experience or knowledge of war, Santos and O’Brien had no idea how to be soldiers

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Dbq: Analyze the 1960's

    • 707 Words
    • 3 Pages

    With Vietnam came the demise of the draft and Lyndon Johnson's Civil Rights Act brought major changes to America. Many men burnt and refused to accept the idea of fighting, what many thought, as an unnecessary war. With so many people against the war in Vietnam, rallies even in the nation’s capital were known. This antiwar spark led to a new kind of political activism and political rallies that still have an impact today. The most lasting political effect was the change in the voting age from 21 to 18. This allowed soldiers being drafted in Vietnam to have a say in the way the government they were fighting for was run. Though hard to see, the war not only powered the sixties, but the civil rights movement.…

    • 707 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the book, If I Die in a Combat Zone…, Tim O’Brien, a Vietnam veteran, gives us his raw, personal story on what it was like to be a soldier in a controversial war. O’Brien was/is a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War and yet he completed his one-year service. He does not shy away from his negative opinions about the war and how in a way the government had let him down. O’Brien leads his story from the beginning in 1968 where he is drafted in Minnesota through 1969 with his homecoming. Throughout the book he is keen on the recognition of his comrades’ deaths, the Vietnamese residents, his daily internal/external battles, and the contemplation of what is bravery/courage.…

    • 178 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Vietnam War was a place of death, destruction, and confusion. Not only was the war a failure, but many soldiers were forced to fight. This lead to many negative effects that I must bring to your attention in this paper. The negative effects on soldiers during and after the war were depression, regret, desensitization, insanity, and the loss of friends.…

    • 690 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    However, as the war went on peoples attitude towards the war began to change, the more people thought about it the more they realised it was more of a civil war rather than war about communism which lead to the thought that it wasn’t our war to fight. Unlike other wars in the past, the Vietnam War was the first war to be filmed and broadcasted on the media, for the first time the public was able to see the violence and brutal effects of war. The war was also negatively published in newspapers, '... The…

    • 802 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    War creates many different versions of a person after being a soldier. A person can become stronger and more focused on the important things in his or her life. Most people come back changed more for the worse though. War can make a person paranoid, cold and withdrawn. The Vietnam War is the most well known for this fact. The war also can make a person learn about life. Thus in Daly Walker’s “I Am the Grass,” the narrator deals with the struggles of life from coming home after the war in Vietnam, finding something to do with his time and life, and returning to Vietnam.…

    • 860 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    To begin with fellow americans are affected by the Vietnam war in a variety of ways. According to the passage the youth males are but through hard time as stated by Martin Luther King " Many people have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation but not able to…

    • 677 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The author, Tim O’Brien, is deployed into the Vietnam war when he is a young man. Throughout the novel, the effects of the war on him are shown and they are profound, he has seen death and suffering; he has he seen death but he has also been the cause of it. He describes everything in the war and the effect that it had on him personally and how it continues to affect him in the present. In the beginning of the novel, O’Brien describes everything the other soldiers carry with them. This is his way of showing that the war is personal to everyone. Based on what each of the soldiers carry with them, he is able to understand their fears and what is important to them. This concept is demonstrated when O’Brien says, “It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to do.” This quote exemplifies the impacts of war on a person’s individualism by saying that during strife, people only did what they thought they had to in order to remain alive. Their own thoughts and ideas mattered less than surviving. Throughout the novel, especially when the author speaks of the present day, it is clear that he is still affected by what he experienced Vietnam War. He is continually influenced by the death and horror that he experienced. His own personal trauma, including when he was shot, impacts his present life as a veteran. The effects of the war on him…

    • 960 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The nature of Vietnam, these chapters of the tell you how bad it is in Vietnam I could just tell how awful it was just by Tim describing the things they had to do and what they did just to try to stay sane. Most of these war veterans came home with PTSD and it has messed them up since. The first story tries to tell you what they been through the things they did. Just think of your best friend dying in front of your eyes and you couldn’t do anything to stop it. That’s how the war was you friend just slowly dying and you can’t stop it.” Curt lemon stepped from the shade to a bright…

    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    When one thinks of war, the general thought is that it inspires acts of patriotism and heroism. No one really looks deeper into the topic to find that along with patriotism and heroism there are often feelings of shame and loneliness. In The Things They Carried it is clear that most of the soldiers in the war do not come back with a sense of pride or honor. Most come back wishing they had never gone at all. Tim O'Brien reveals that because Vietnam precipitated such traumatic experiences, his storytelling is a great way to cope with his shame and loneliness, emphasizing that the war experience is not one of patriotism and heroism, but one of loneliness and guilt.…

    • 765 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The controversial Vietnam War had a huge impact on Australian society in the 1960's/1970's. It affected all aspects of society, such as the social, economic and political issues. Vietnam was known as a 'TV War'. A lot of violent and gruesome footage of the war was broadcasted right into people's homes. People felt the need to report their own opinions and a very biased view of the war, they were not concerned with the thoughts of the Vietnamese people and their say in what was going on.…

    • 1002 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Vietnam War had a lasting impact on Vietnam Veterans, who although they fought their hardest for their country, they returned to a country who saw them as less than heroes. They suffered both psychological and medical problems from open battles, sniper attacks and chemical warfare, and stress from war-life. Although the Vietnam War had some negative impacts, the Vietnam War was the turning point in Australian society, changing to a multicultural community we are proud of today.…

    • 687 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    If I Die In A Combat Zone

    • 1332 Words
    • 6 Pages

    wrong he experiences during his time as a member of the military. From the moment he is drafted, O’Brien is against the war. He knows it is his duty to go to the Vietnam and fight for his country, but at the same time he makes obscene posters in his basement declaring the war, the draft, and his town with their support are evil (pg. 20). While talking to a Chaplain O’Brien reveals his true problem with war is not one of fighting, but one of fear and intellect and being considered a hero (pg. 56). At basic training, he participated with one hundred percent from crawling under wire to chanting along with his fellow soldiers to convince himself that he is doing the right thing. At night, however, his thoughts overtook him and plans for an escape filled his head. He had papers prepared along with a bus ticket for Canada ready. Once the opportunity came for him to escape, the thought of his country needing him to fight for them outweighed the thought of him needing to escape the evils he was participating in and he returned to basic training (pg. 67). O’Brien knew that this required courage and courage was more than just accepting the call to serve and facing the possibility of death, it was serving with his whole heart every second of his deployment (pg. 141). Yet, part of him still fought to go home, away from the…

    • 1332 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mike Clark Narrative

    • 1580 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” War creates many experiences that continues to play an evident role in many soldiers lives. One particular soldier, Mike Clark, globally shares his story of being a Vietnam veteran, and the difficult times that he underwent during the Vietnam War. Clark’s personal story is unique because of the difficult decisions he makes and the factors that cause him to make them. Clark explains the reality behind joining the military and witnessing the tragedies that are experienced during the war. While exploring Mike Clark’s Vietnam War story and remembering the war veterans, it is important to consider…

    • 1580 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the most significant ways O’Brien is able to depict the war as immoral is by detailing many of the horrendous scenes he and other soldiers were forced to experience because of their enlistment. Shortly after O’Brien joins the Alpha Company, he is awakened in the night by enemy attacks. He is one of the only men to rush to prepare himself and as the assaults draw closer he notices that most of the other soldiers are drunk and mentally absent from the situation taking…

    • 1279 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Vietnam War

    • 641 Words
    • 3 Pages

    One of the most critical outcomes of armed conflict is the impact on societies. Armed conflict has far-reaching effects and substantially impacts societies. Below is a list of conflicts the United States fought after 1918.…

    • 641 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays