War scene...in a different perspective: Allison Jones

War…when one thinks of the word war, bloody, scenes may come to mind deadly battles, gun fire, and many other occurrences that result to ones death. However, after reading “Spin” by Tim O’Brien, one can learn that war is not just about fights against one side over another, it also represents bad, distasteful experiences that one encountered. The first paragraph begins with “The war wasn’t all terror and violence. Sometimes things could almost get sweet”. (O’Brien). This statement is eye-catching, and somewhat ironic, because it does not meet the expectation of a war genre. Throughout the story, various experiences for example the little boy hopping around on one plastic leg, Mitchell Sanders prying his body lice, and Norman Bowker wishing for something other than his fathers greed for his medals, are all considered “things they carried”. Experiences that are never forgotten. O’Brien, on the contrary, begins to feel guilty, because he is forty three and still writes war stories. The events that are left in his memory, are what become stories. “You take your material where you find it, which is in your life, at the intersection of past and present”. (O’Brien). The most “odd little fragments that have no beginning and no end are those that stick to memory”. These fragments in ones mind represent unanswered reasons of why the problem occurred in the first place, and how it will end. These burdens are “Things they carried”. After reading “Spin” one will learn that relying on your past, and relating it to the future is what creates a story. “Bad stuff never stops happening, it lives in it own dimensions, replaying itself over and over”. (O’Brien).
Unlike the previous story, “The Man I Killed” by Tim O’Brien does meet the expectations of a war genre describing a young man with his jaw in his throat. His one eye was shut and the other was a star shaped hole. The upper lip, gum and teeth were gone.” The young man did not want to be a solider, however it was his duty. He fought when he did not want to. In one comparison to the story ‘Spin”, “the things the young man carried” was the burden of performing badly in a battle. O’Brien changes the way he describes the young man. Usually in a war scene, one is described as being very masculine and strong, however O’Brien mentions that the young boy had “pretty eyes, with arched eyebrows, long shapely fingers, smooth skin, and a love for math”. This description doesn’t paint much of a war masculine image in the readers mind. He prayed for the war to be over .
After reading the final pages of the “Good Form”, one can understand that Tim was a foot soldier in Qang Ngai Province. He killed the young man who was found under a tree with no upper lip, gums, nor teeth, legs bent back, head and neck wrenched. One lesson learned after reading all three of the stories, is to never deny the truth. If denied, it may cause guilt, and lead to ones downfall.