Analytical Essay:

The world that in which all of us live in is constantly changing. Take a step back and look at the ways that the whole world strives to be aligned with the latest in technology advancements, and the most recent ideals that even go so far to question the idea of war and death as a part of life. The majority of the world will almost always come up with something that helps them hang on for a while. Humans have such an unquenchable thirst for the newest, most entertaining ideals that they tend to forget about the past or the things that happened to them that really matter.

In the book, The Yellow Birds, war veteran Kevin Powers really brought across his thinking and actions during the war through his writing, which is something no other veteran it seems was able to.  On page eleven of the book the main character, Bartle says,"I was not surprised by the cruelty of my ambivalence back then. Nothing seemed more natural than someone getting killed." When he speaks of this ambivalence he simply means that in the state of war his character was overwhelmed by his surroundings and the seriousness of it all that he began to question his original feelings of being there in the first place. He originally didn’t care for death but as the world around him began to change, he quickly began to rethink his position on death.

Later in the book, after Bartle had been sensitized to war, he saw a lot of death and destruction, and he even watched his good friend die. Afterwards he said the following. "It made me feel fine to be walking alone in the rain that day... I began to feel a kind of calm when I passed the townspeople. I couldn't have placed it then, but now, looking back, there was a peace in the absence of talk." After being on the war front for a while he doesn’t seem to understand that people are actually losing their lives and that his friends and team are the one there causing that damage. When he was put into this new environment he slowly began to change. The old Bartle before the war wouldn’t have found peace in the absence of talk, he would have found the opposite.  

In an interview conducted by Knoxnews.com in which they interviewed Kevin Powers in realation to his book. In that interview he said, "The most meaningful praise I've gotten is from other vets who've said that I was able to articulate something that they had been feeling for a really long time but hadn't been able to express." The reason that he was able to articulate these feelings that other vets have is he was there just like they were and he understands that although he was stationed there and it was his job, war is a hard thing to handle. And these vets, just like he did, made up emotions or ideals that allowed them to cope with the devastation.

          In conclusion, although veterans and people who never been to war have totally different ideals, it still relates to them because the whole world can think back to a point in their lives when they strived for something other than what they currently think/have. Humans have such an unquenchable thirst for the newest, most entertaining ideals that they tend to forget about the past or the things that happened to them that really matter.

Works Cited for Analytical Essay:

"'Yellow Birds' Author Kevin Powers Talks about Iraq War, Returning Vets."KNS. Knoxnews, n.d. Web. 14 Jan. 2015. <http://www.knoxnews.com/knoxville/life/yellow-birds-author-kevin-powers-talks-about-iraq>.

Powers, Kevin. The Yellow Birds: A Novel. New York: Little, Brown, 2012. Print.

Narrative Essay:

In my life there has always been a way for me to drown out the struggles of the real world. Weather it be my family life, school work, friendships and hardships. Technology has been a key factor in this problem. It gives us the opportunity to escape from the real world and immerse ourselves in a cyber paradise that mostly all of us have been to. Just like in The Yellow Birds where Bartle and his co-soldiers escape to a place in their minds where they can accept what is happening to them on another level.

In the year 2008, my father had a stroke. It was very serious, in fact he was in the hospital for almost an entire year due to a brain aneurysm rupture. Now I was young and this was very hard for me to handle. For the first couple months my brothers and I didn’t even know what was going on. Then when we didn’t see dad for a while, and our out of state family started flying in we knew something was wrong. I’ll never forget when my Aunt Linda took me and my older brother out on the front step and said, “Guys, your dad is in the hospital and it doesn’t look like he’s going to make it.” Joe and I looked at each other and couldn’t believe our ears.

For a while I was sad, very sad, I would cry my eyes out at night because I knew that my dad might never come home. This was when I became a really big video game person. The first game I bought after this was the very first Rock Band 2 bundle for the Xbox 360. If it wasn’t for this game, for the entirety of the year 2009 I would have been very depressed. But every time I started thinking of my dad I would just turn the Xbox on and play like 20 songs on the drum kit and then sing a couple, this was the only way I could keep my mind off of my dad. Then he came home after a few more months, the doctors said it was a miracle, he had a 95% chance of dying. It was odd though, when I first saw him after all this I felt like he was never gone to begin with.

Not to make whoever’s reading this pity me but I had a pretty rough childhood. After all that brain aneurysm business, my parents split up. Only 6 months or so after my dad got home. I guess being away from each other for so long killed the love. Anyway when they filed for divorce I was angry. Angry enough to get suspended from school. I fought some kid Alex in sixth grade because he said something about my parents. Then 2010 began the cycle of switching between houses. I hated it. This was around the time that I just started to make friends, I started to make my own life outside of my family. I just couldn't deal with all of the fighting and problems anymore. I met this kid Paul who was going through similar problems with his family and to this day we are still friends. We stuck through it all and I'm still switching houses, which sucks but sometimes in life you don't get a choice and you just have to keep rolling with the changes.

Analytical Essay:

War is a dangerous place. It is not only a place of life or death physically but also mentally. As it has been proven time and time again soldiers coming “home” from war are likely to have psychological issues. This is a topic that is talked about a lot in “The Yellow Birds” by Kevin Powers. The main character Bartle struggled immensely with returning home after war. “Home” is in quotation marks because as Bartle says throughout many of the chapters in the book, the home he left from never felt the same when he returned. His world changed the moment he joined and would never be the same.  As the world changes around a person it can be a shock to the system. People deal with this change differently, some may be ready to face their fears and face the change head on. Others that aren’t as ready to face the change seclude themselves so they do not to have to face the reality of their world changing. But the time will come, sooner or later, that they will have to face the change.

Bartle was in his early 20’s when he came back from his tour in Iraq. He had witnessed things that a civilian should never have to witness. When he was deployed he, and others, would often talk about going home and being reunited with love ones. What they didn’t know was how it would feel to be back home. Home was unrecognizable. Everything he had thought about as his home, now seemed to be totally different. “I was disappearing. It was as if I stripped myself away in that darkened bedroom… I would be another number for the cable news shows.”(pg.111) Bartle was going into a new phase in his life he felt as though everything he knew before, he was losing. He felt like he was losing himself. It is interesting how the one thing Bartle and his friends talked about was going home, but now that he was there, he wanted to be anywhere else. Such a big part of what was his entire life was before, was now changing right in front of him but he didn’t feel ready or comfortable with the change.  

Bartle thought on at least one occasion that the life he was now living, at home, wasn’t real. The mindset of being at war had taken over his mind and there was no going back. “The rest is history, they say. Bullshit, I say. It’s imagination or it’s nothing, and must be, because what is created in this world, or made, can be undone, unmade.” (pg. 100) Bartle is mad at the world. He is mad that it’s changing, and even more importantly, his world is changing. His world isn’t changing in a small way either, it is changing in a sever way in which it will never be the world he lived in before he went to the war.

He had gone through many different traumatic incidents but when one of the most traumatic happen his world changed possibly the most. He didn’t handle it well. “By the time autumn came again I was firmly settled in the old gasworks building at the edge of the river. My life was small. I lived in an apartment on an upper floor and had little in the way companionship.” (pg. 177) Bartle feels like he no longer fit in anywhere so he separated himself from everyone. He wanted to run away from the reality of his life. His real life was quickly changing and he felt as though he could not handle it. The best way for him to deal with this was to simply shut it out for as long as possible.

In an interview with the author, Kevin Powers, he said, "The most meaningful praise I've gotten is from other vets who've said that I was able to articulate something that they had been feeling for a really long time but hadn't been able to express." This shows that the author's motivation for writing this book was to articulate something that other soldiers and vets didn't know how to put into words. This gave other veterans a voice that they didn't have before. The story was written as his outlet. It isn’t always necessary for a support system to be a human being but anyway to talk about the feelings bottled up inside.

People deal with changes in the world differently and there are factors that play into the way they handle the situation. Some people that are  in the midst of a change, will introvert themselves and not share what they are going through with anyone. This leads to their emotions being bottled up. People that have found a way to talk about what they are going through usually have a healthier life. People have a different way of going through change, Bartle handled it one way and the author a different way.

Works Cited for Analytical Essay:

• "'Yellow Birds' Author Kevin Powers Talks about Iraq War, Returning Vets." Interview. Go Knoxville. Scripps Media Inc., 18 Oct. 2012. Web. 12 Jan. 2015. <http://www.knoxnews.com/knoxville/life/yellow-birds-author-kevin-powers-talks-about-iraq>.

• Powers, Kevin. The Yellow Birds: A Novel. New York: Little, Brown, 2012. Print.

Narrative Essay:

Change is scary. When I changed from elementary school to high school, I happened to go with a lot of my friends. For a while I would only hang out with my friends from elementary school because I felt comfortable around them. I had known them for years, they were familiar. We all stuck together, we had planned to do that for the next four years. I would say what we did was common. Not many people branched out at first. I think this helped me a lot. I could get over fear of being in high school and then I would later find new friends and branch out.

Bartle did not do this. He wanted no recollection of what happened abroad and would try his hardest to forget. This meant not getting back together with friends from his platoon. I think if he had gotten together with them it would have made the transition easier, like it did for me and my friends. When you have a support system around you it makes it a lot easier for you to be able to talk and face changes head on and feel more comfortable about who you are and the situation you are in. When you surround yourself with people that understand what you are going through they can not only be there for you but you can also be there for them. It makes the change easier to get through and less painful when you can talk about it.

My grandfather has been in a wheelchair my entire life. When I was little I didn’t like how much attention would be brought on me when I was out with him. I felt like everyone was looking at me, my solution was to hide. I would hide behind coat racks, my mom, anything I could find. Since he lives in England I didn’t ever have time to get used to it, by the time I would get any less uncomfortable, we would be coming home. It wasn’t until I became much more sure of myself that I was comfortable with others staring at us as when we were out. I realized that the most important thing was to have self confidence. When Bartle came home he was uncomfortable with himself, which made him want to hide. He became introverted and didn’t want to be around others.

Going to my Grandfather’s house was always like going to a new land, everything seemed to be new. I felt uncomfortable and didn’t know how to handle it. I, much like Bartle, handled my discomfort internally. I was uncomfortable with being somewhere new, Bartle wasn’t somewhere new, he was in the place he grew up the same place he had spent so much of his life. But to him it wasn’t old it was a whole new place with because he changed, he wasn’t the same. He wasn’t comfortable with what he had become into.

I was 12 when my step father moved in with my mom and I. It was the biggest change I have ever encountered. It had been my mom and I since I was 6 months old and I wasn’t ready for that to change. I felt like he was invading my world. My step dad is a really nice person, but he was a major change in my world. I couldn’t talk to my mom about it because she would think I was just being mean. I kept it all to myself and it felt like at any moment I might explode.

Nothing is ever the same after the life change. The thing that distinguishes people is how they deal with it. For me in different situation I react differently. Bartle bottled his up all of the time and the author wrote all of his feelings in a book. There may not be a clear idea at the time of what to do but if you talk about what you are going through it will have a positive effect on your physical and mental health.

Analytical Essay:

As life goes one you learn to adapt to your surroundings. Only you determine your future, based by the actions an individual takes to focus on what is in the present to look forward and improve for a better future. The challenges you face in the long run will be worth the effort. In the book “The Things They Carried” Tim O’Brien has a series of characters that go through the process of self change. This is expressed with two characters by the name of Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk.

“ Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk did not become instant buddies but they learn to trust each other “. When Dave & Lee are just settling into an unfamiliar environment for the very first time both men are distant to each other. In the Chapter “Enemies “ they had got into a fistfight, over a missing jackknife. It became a brutal one, because Dave Jensen was a way bigger man he had an advantage. He punched Lee Strunk’s nose until you heard it snapped like a firecracker and broke.  “ Over the next month they often teamed up on ambushes.” Dave Jensen & Lee Strunk were distant to unknown resources they had surrounding them. For the first time they would have to rely on someone other than themselves to operate in combat. Gaining each others trust would be a major key of compromise.

“In late August they made a pact that of one of them should ever get totally f*cked--a wheelchair wound -- the other guy would automatically find a way to end it”  In a way this is a test to their relationship, to have the word of trust . As a friend it is the individual’s position  to respect the wishes and the opinions of each other. For such an individual may say things that at the moment one would desire to hear emotionally. Yet until the individual is put into a situation where the pact one thought was just for emotional support trust. The same promise that an individual thought would not have to phase at such unexpected timing, requires rational reflection. Immediately becomes making a decision between life or death.

While in combat Lee Strunk had gotten shot in the legs . His legs were amputated from the knee down. In and out of consciousness Lee Strunk frantically talks to Jensen.

“ I’m serious “

“ But you gotta promise. Swear it to me -- swear you won’t kill me “

Jensen nodded and said , “ I swear “, and then a little later we carried Strunk off to the chopper. At the moment the pact was no longer a sense of emotional trust. It became a physically action that was determined yet, suddenly declined then you are put into the situation of taking what you agreed on serious.  

“Jensen reach out reached out and touched the good leg. “ Go on    now, “ he said. Later we heard that Strunk had died somewhere Chu Lai, which seemed  to relieve Dave Jensen of an enormous  weight. “ In a way he felt the guilt of not following their pact. However at the same time he was grateful that he didn’t have to bear the burden of potentially having to kill his best friend. I feel as though neither Dave nor Lee expected to have to face that moment of putting one out of their misery as fast as it happened. At the moment the pact was a sense of emotional trust. Until it physically happened then you are put into the situation of taking what you agreed on serious.

In order to change the world, an individual has to start the process of change within themselves first. Being able to adjust to a different environment that you are not used to is a way of change. From one change to another, someone can evolve into a improved person, because the certain adjustments they make to do their routine in a new way.

Works Cited for Analytical Essay:

O'Brien, Tim' The Things They Carried. New York: H, 1990. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Web.

"The Things They Carried." Google Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Jan. 2015.

Narrative Essay:

When you’re introduced to the transition phase from elementary school to middle school, then middle school to high school you notice an immediate change. You are surrounded into a brand new environment with people you are just meeting for the first time, you tend to automatically shut people out because you are unknown of whether they have negative or positive intentions for you. The day is almost over and I am in such anticipation in going home. You watch the clock as the big hand moves towards 3 o’clock. You walk into the hallway hoping no one runs you over and knock you down. You look down so you don’t make eye contact so you won’t attract attention towards yourself.

That night as you sit at the dinner table your Mom and Dad bombard you with a variety of questions. “Who’s your teacher?”, “What classes do you have?”, did you see somebody you recognize about things and people you don’t ever have a clue to who they are. You lay in bed exhausted because all day you’ve been given directions and asked to do this or that.

The second day isn’t any better, as the day goes by little by little you begin to wonder who are the classmates that surround you. As you try to remember their name to ask them a series of questions like , what’s their  favorite hobby, if they have siblings. You take a leap of faith and decide open up about yourself to your classmates. Starting off small, just little fun facts like you favorite color your school .

The moment you recognize a familiar face but can’t remember where. The teacher says

her name and it clicked, a mutual friend. You approach her with so many questions about people you would think she would know about. At first you can tell she is weirded out because she doesn’t even remember you. Yet and still you stand there hoping she knows who you are talking about. The elephant in the room disappears and you meet with smiles and laughter as you discuss how who knows who from where. You develop a close bond with her, as if she knew you all along. The teacher gives you your roster, noticing that you and her have all the same classes but two. Already you plan the year out hoping you too still are friends by then.

You think to yourself how could two different personalities share such same interest. Three months has gone by, you’re still learning your roster and what class is where. You’re relieved because  you have you friend who is always there to keep you on track. You’ve built a buddy system for each other. Your were the dynamite duo, whenever  you see one you see the other. If one of y’all were absent the class would know who to ask! You complain how hard school is when you forget that at the time you were only a freshman. And that you could not make it without your close friend.

In the end of the year you get life changing news. You think the world is coming to an end, your best friend is transferring to a different school. At first you thought it was just a practical joke. It all became surreal by the end of the year. You start thinking you are losing the one closest person you have at school. You spend everyday with, goof around in class with and even go home together with. You promise to never forget each other no matter what . The summer becomes to an end and you think she’s forgotten about you.

What you thought was a permanent goodbye turned out to be a new beginning of a even stronger friendship. You got a surprised called from her the first day off school. Turns out that her school is only right around the corner from where you live. SO you’ll be able to see each other often. When you get to school you get asked the same question “How do you feel without her”, “Do you miss her” and “what if she forgets about you”  You got a surprised called from her the first day off school. A sign that she hasn’t forgotten about you. From there you text, call and face time each other everyday. You switch roles, instead of you going over her house she comes over yours. As you grow older you experience what it is to be a teenager together. You always have her to talk to even if she’s a phone call away. But lucky I see her just about every weekend. We mature and grow with each other to succeed the highest achievements in life .

Analytical Essay:

Running and hiding are figurative and literal things people do when they see their worlds changing. People don’t like to experience new things that they aren’t comfortable with, or not knowing what is going to happen. A lot of times change can be good, but the fear of not knowing where that change will lead you makes change scary. Sometimes change can be life altering. “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’brien is a great example of people experiencing change and how it has affected them. Change is inevitable and in many cases can be scary. The fear of the unknown makes people not want to experience the change.

The main Character of the book, Tim O’brien, lived in Minnesota where he spent his summer working in a meatpacking plant. He would work there all day then drive around during the night time. One day he came home to a draft notice in the mail. He states, “The draft notice arrived on June 17th, 1968...I remember opening up the letter, scanning the first few lines, feeling the blood go thick behind my eyes. I remember a sound in my head. “(42) He talks about what it was like when he found out that this new thing was going to be happening in his life. It was so scary for him, and he didn’t know how to deal with it. It was a huge change, he would be going to a war that he didn’t believe in, and that he could possibly die from. He faced the decision of either fleeing the country, or staying there until he had to leave for the Vietnam War. Now it is a choice of people if they want to go into a war like this, unless there aren’t enough volunteers, but during the Vietnam War there was a draft, and he didn’t have a choice on whether he wanted to go or not.  Readers can understand how scary this would be to receive a letter like this. In war, it is a daily fight for ones life.

Tim feels like nobody understands what this war is about, and would sometimes start big arguments with people over the anger he had inside him. They were sending him off to war yet they didn’t really understand the war themselves. He says “I was bitter, sure. But it was so much more than that. The emotions went from outrage to terror to bewilderment to guilt to sorrow and then back again to outrage. I felt sickness inside me. Real disease.” (45/46) He didn’t like that he was going somewhere that nobody knew anything about. They didn’t understand him and what he was going through. He was mad. He was going through all of these feelings because of this change that he was so scared of. He didn’t know what would happen to him, just like nobody really knows, so it was making him nervous. People who have not experienced war, don’t understand it. He didn’t understand what he was getting in to. The fear was making him start these arguments with people because he felt like he was going through this alone.

After receiving the draft letter, O’brien had a hard decision to make: Flee to Canada, or stay and go to War. O’brien decides to go, but later decides to come back. On his way there, he states,  “I headed up the rainy river, which separates Minnesota from Canada, and which for me separated one life from another.” (47) Tim going to Canada is deciding whether he goes to war or not. If he flees, they won’t be able to find him and take him away. He knows this and he knows that he doesn’t want to change his life. The author of the book, Tim O’brien, is trying to tell the readers that he was scared. He feared what was going to be so new to him. This decision is life altering, and he doesn’t know what to expect either way he goes. He states that this separates one life from another, which is very true. On one side, he will be fighting for his life, and seeing so much death, but on the other hand he is leaving and having to start a new life over. Both are big changes, but one is much bigger than the other.

Tim has been in many interviews since the writing of his book. He talks about what it was like when he first received the letter.  ''I went to my room in the basement and started pounding the typewriter,'' he recalled. ''I did it all summer. It was the most terrible summer of my life, worse than being in the war. My conscience kept telling me not to go, but my whole upbringing told me I had to. That horrible summer made me a writer. I don't know what I wrote. I've still got it, reams of it, but I'm not willing to look at it. It was just stuff - bitter, bitter stuff, and it's probably full of self-pity. But that was the beginning.'' ("A storyteller for the war that won't end"). Tim talks about when he first got the draft notice. He didn’t know what to do and it was all he could think about. He talks about how he was having an internal conflict between his conscience and everything he believes in from growing up. He was scared yet felt he had to do it. He was scared for his entire life to change. He talks about it as it is a good thing, that having this struggle made him a much writer and he was more able to express his feelings. Even though, that is not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about going to war and writing about it, there were some good things that came out of it. Writing helped O’brien cope with this change a little more, and changed his perspective on the war.

Change is inevitable and in many cases can appear scary. The fear of the unknown makes people not want to experience the change. When there is a change people are going into something that they might not be very comfortable with, something, that in very many situations it is out of their comfort zone. It takes time to adjust to something new in a persons life.

Works Cited for Analytical Essay:

1. O'brien, Tim. "A Storyteller for the War That Won't End." Interview by D.J.R Bruckner. The New York Times. N.p., 3 Apr. 1990. Web. 10 Jan. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/20/specials/obrien-storyteller.html>.

2. O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction. New York: Broadway, 1998. Print.

Narrative Essay:

“You will be going to a new school this year.”

“But why?”

“It is more affordable and a lot easier.”

I remember it was going into my fifth grade year. I felt like my world was crumbling down. At this point in my life, I had been experiencing so much change in different areas that I just couldn’t deal with anymore. My parents were separating, I was moving to a new house, and now this. I didn’t know what to expect walking into a new school. It was all I could think about all summer. Right before the school year started I knew I wasn’t ready for this change. It was like starting all over again. I didn’t want to have to make new friends and go in to a new environment that I wasn’t used to. I honestly thought I was going to be the only new one at school and I would be the odd one out.

The school that I came from was a very small school with not much diversity. It was a great school, but it was nothing different since I had gone there since pre-k. It was a very colorful and interesting school. It was so much different than the school that I transferred to. My new school, was a lot more structured. The classrooms were all made of this bland, brown color. It was almost like they picked the most boring color they could find. The school was a lot more diverse in the types of students they had, which was a very good part of the move. None of the teachers really had a life to them, they were all so stern, and there we so many rules. I now understand why everything was this way, but coming in as a fifth grader, I just saw something that I didn’t like.

I remember being so nervous when I walked in. I have a very shy personality, and I knew that I wasn’t going to talk to anybody, being the new girl. When I got there I realized that there were actually a lot of new students, and one of them I became very good friends with. Some of the kids at my new school were very friendly and made me feel so comfortable while others just stared at me and made me feel uncomfortable. I feared what was going to happen at a new school. It could have gone many ways. I am glad that there were people there to make my change nice and comfortable, but I do realize that there are also people there that are going to try and make things hard for you no matter what you are doing in life.

As the year went on, I noticed that my environment was not the only change I would be experiencing. I had to make new friends, but I didn’t realize that I would slowly be losing the old. I don’t quite know when it all happened, but I think it was right after I stopped playing soccer. I played with mostly girls from my old school. Once I stopped, my relationship with them ended as well. It happened pretty quickly. I never got to see them because my life became so busy, and I was never seeing them during the week like I always used to. I remember I woke up one saturday and realized that I only really talked to the people at my new school. I had experienced a change that I was so scared of. I never really got too upset about it, I just knew that me talking to them was seperating my old life from my new life. I think that at first I was very scared for this adjustment in my life, but it soon just became so normal that it didn’t matter much anymore. I almost knew this was going to happen when I went to a new school, but it was hard to make it a reality.

As I got older, things that were so strange to me became normal, but things were still changing. A large change that I have been facing is my siblings going off to college. My brother was the first to go, and then followed my sister.  It made me really upset knowing that I wasn’t going to be with them all the time. I was scared to be alone. I was scared that once they left everything would change. I would basically be alone in the house and I would only really be able to talk to them through the phone. Before they were leaving, I never really thought about it, and when I did I was kind of excited to have the house alone. Both times though, as they left, it dawned on me that I would not get to be with them as much, and it made me upset. I didn’t notice the change until the last minute, and until it was probably too late for me to realize. I wasn’t going to be able to talk to them about how annoying our parents were being, or laugh with them when we are making fun of our parents. We just had so much fun together. I think of this as not one of my most traumatic changes, not saying it wasn’t life changing, but is something that I would have overcome eventually and is something that I needed to face.

I still tend to get very nervous around change but I have learned to cope with my nerves. I have started to become numb to it. I have been through so much change already that it is starting to not affect me unless the change is very drastic. There are so many things that I wish never changed, but if they hadn’t I don’t know where my life would be now. It could be better but it also could have been a lot worse. I think that is why so many people fear change. They don’t know what will happen either way.

Life has many inevitable features, one of them being change. There are many different kinds of change a person will go through in their life, and those changes affect everyone differently. In Tim O’Brien’s “work of fiction,” The Things They Carried, all of the soldiers experience environmental change when making their transition into the war. All of the soldiers adapt to the changes differently, however some try to resist change by acting as if they are still back home in the U.S.  Those experiencing change learn that they need to be flexible and accepting if a good outcome is desired.

Prior to being drafted into Vietnam, Lieutenant Cross fell in love with a college girl named Martha. When he arrived at war, he had a hard time letting go of her. He wrote to her constantly, and carried her picture in his pocket everywhere he went. He often times got carried away in the thought of her, and their future together. Because of his carelessness, one of his men was killed on his watch. Cross couldn’t forgive himself for getting distracted by a life that is no longer his reality. “In part he was grieving for Ted Lavender, but mostly it was for Matha, and himself, because she belonged to another world, which was not real.” Lieutenant Cross embraces his environmental change into the war by not only remembering the love of his life, but by keeping in close touch with her. Because he was still so focused on staying connected with his old life by being in touch with Martha, he lost touch with his current life. He resisted the change by still holding on to what he once had, which ultimately lead to his failure as a lieutenant. When Cross’s environment first changed, he had an immediate instinct to resist the transition. When it was proved that he was too distracted by keeping in close touch with the life he left behind, he was embarrassed and ashamed. This experience taught him to let go of the past, and embrace his newly changed life.

Like Lieutenant Cross, soldier Mark Fossie had a hard time adjusting into the war because he couldn’t stand being away from his lover. One night, Fossie and the other soldiers were talking about how much they missed their girlfriends, and women in general. This leads Fossie to miss his old life to such an extreme that he sends for his girlfriend, Mary Anne. When she first arrived in Vietnam, everything was going great. However, eventually Mary Anne started adjusting to the environmental change, which ultimately changed her personality. Fossie detected the change almost immediately, and regretted bringing her out to war. “He couldn’t pin it down. Her body seemed foreign somehow- too stiff in places, too firm where the softness used to be.” Right when Fossie was getting used to his life changing in war, he started to miss his old life. Instead of just reminiscing, he decided to try and live out the life he missed, resisting the change. This backfired on him, since, of course, Mary Anne changed just like everything else. Their relationship couldn’t be healed, since it belonged back home, not on the battlefield. Fossie learned the lesson that when life changes occur, one has to accept them instead of trying to ignore them.

In an interview with Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried, he explains what a soldier does to mentally handle the war. He says, “the one way to psychologically endure it all is to escape in your head, in your imagination.” Tim O’Brien believes that not only forgetting one’s reality can help them survive the war, but remembering their old lives is necessary to enduring the pain. The key word that O’Brien uses is “imagination.” This explains what soldiers like Lieutenant Cross and Mark Fossie did wrong: they went past simply remembering their family and loved ones to actually involving them into their present life in the war. When change as extreme as going into the war takes place, a soldier’s home life and life in the battlefield need to be kept separate. This does not mean a soldier shouldn’t think about their loved ones and home, but it should never get in the way of their new lives. Accepting environmental changes into battle means to take on one’s career as a soldier strongly, whereas resisting is to ignore the changes.

Environmental change is one of the countless forms of change that people are bound to experience in their life. Many have a first instinct to resist change, which causes a negative outcome. When change arises, one needs to be flexible and accepting. Those experiencing change learn that they need to be flexible and accepting if a good outcome is desired.

Works Cited for Analytical Essay:

1. "In the Name of Love: An Interview With Tim O'Brien." Personal interview. 10 2009.

2. Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction. New York: Broadway, 1998. Print.

Analytical Essay:

“Those who have had any such experience as the author will see its truthfulness at once, and to all other readers it is commended as a statements of actual things by one who experienced them to the fullest.” - John Ransom’s Andersonville Diary. With the world constantly changing, people tend to get lost, distressed, and totally confused about the curveballs and hard times in life. It could be economic struggles, emotional differences within a relationship, or in this case war. Like Tim O’Brien, the therapeutic way of dealing with the changing world is imagining things and painting a new story like how Tim did by writing The Things They Carried.

The Vietnam war was known to be the most devastating in US history due to the uncivilized and jurassic tactics that the Vietnamese used against us. Such as using children to fight for them and women. The soldiers had different forms of comfort to help them through the hard times. Some might have been imagining loved ones were there like James Cross in ‘The Things They Carried’, “Lieutenant Cross gazed at the tunnel. But she was not there. He was buried with Martha under the white sand at the Jersey shore. They were pressed together, and the pebble in his mouth was her tongue.” (pg 18 Ebook). Jimmy Cross had a long going love for this girl of his back at home. At night to escape from the living hell of the Vietnam War, he would imagine the times that him and his girl had back at home. It was almost like a therapeutic act to do it at night. It would remind him all of the good times he had and let him know that something was waiting for him at home. Martha sent him a pebble from the Jersey shore to remember her by and he had that with him at all time. He would put the stone in his mouth to synthesize Martha’s tongue. As odd as it may sound, it worked for him.

Some of the soldiers took with them sentimental items with them. Some would use it as a device of comfort. With the treturous missions came big risks, that they would not make it home alive; to be shipped back stateside in a wooden box. With the flag draped across the top. Even the biggest of warriors had their charms and sentimental pieces. “ The pantyhose, he said, had the properties of a good-luck charm. He liked putting his nose into the nylon and breathing in the scent of his girlfriend's body; he liked the memories this inspired; he sometimes slept with the stockings up against his face, the way an infant sleeps with a flannel blanket, secure and peaceful.” (pg 82 Ebook). The little things are what kept some of the soldiers sane. The stocking in this case was used as a device to cope and remember about the good times spent with the soldiers girl friend. The one that he left at home to help fight for their freedom and to help support the countries endeavors. The simplest things like the pantyhose and the stone reminded the soldiers what they were fighting for and that they had someone or something.

One can ask veterans of the Vietnam War and the majority of them would describe it as hell. Tim O’Brien the author of The Things They Carried wrote a lot about his war experiences. In one interview with a news company he said "Imagination is important in a couple of ways. One way is as a psychological means of escape. If one can lose themselves in a fantasy, then they would be no longer trapped in the horror of, say, Vietnam." Escaping while being in the Vietnam war was a huge thing. Some resulted in drug and alcohol abuse the numb the pain and horrors encountered while being there. While others used this as a time to imagine their loved ones and used certain sentimental objects to help the imagination some to life.

With the world constantly changing, people tend to get lost, distressed, and totally confused with all of the curveballs and hard times in life. It could be economic struggles, relationships with others, or in this case war. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien holds great proof that imagination is a great use for a type of therapeutic healing.

Works Cited for Analytical Essay:

O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction. New York: Broadway, 1998. Print.

Sawyer, Scott. "In the Name of Love: An Interview With Tim O'Brien." Mars Hill Review. LeaderU.com (Links to an external site.). Winter/Spring 1996. Web. October 20 2009.

Narrative Essay:

Growing up as an only child is the definition of the struggle. Having no one to ever play with was the worst thing I could think of. When friends were not over, being bored was a huge problem. Boredom would result in me either getting hurt or doing something that I should not do. Imagination started to play a huge role in my childhood days.

About when I turned 4 I would believe that my cat named Bobby would drive me to Pre-School in my fathers Corvette. It had to be one of the most outrageous things, but it was definitely kept me occupied. When I told kids as school this, they were instantly amazed, except for this kid Jeremy, but he didn’t last long there after he bit my arm and I hit him. Anyways, when I would get home, I would put my cat Bobby in my huge model car. Bringing him around the house as he was deathly terrified. Its crazy to think back now that for hours on end I would do this, It would really keep me amused. I would also play Madden 03’ with my cat on my PS2. I would think that he would be playing. I would plug in the controller and put it in front of him, but majority of the time, Bobby would run away.

Also as a younger child, I had a teddy bear by the name of Teddy. How original? Right, anyways I won him at Sesame Place when I was 4 years old. Now he was not just any ordinary teddy bear, he was high quality and never ripped or was torn open. About a day after my adventures of Sesame Place, I had gotten very sick from the food there. I had Teddy with me the whole time I was in bed, out of bed running to the bathroom, and then back into bed. He was the one that was there for me the whole time. When I was 7 we had a series of bad thunderstorms during the Summer and trees were falling all over our neighborhood. I would constantly cry, but when I got teddy in my arms I would calm down. It’s as if Teddy was my coping tool with certain things in my childhood.

As time went on and I grew up, my phone turned into a huge support device and just a way to kinda almost escape. Whether it be music, facebook, instagram, something sneaker or Kanye related, or talking to someone; it is a great thing. Just listening to music for countless hours on end can help a bunch when in certain situations. Then also having the ability to contact anyone you know in the matter of seconds to talk to them about something is great as well. I remember when I was about 10 when my parents were getting divorced. There was a bunch of constant fighting back and forth with my parents. I would call my grandmother to talk to because she was the easiest person to talk to. She also helped me through a bunch of things at that time like school work and advice. I had gotten some of the best advice of my life over the phone from her. My phone lead into a different way form of comfort, one that is almost constant.

Analytical Essay:

When people talk about fate, their first instinct immediately tells them that they are in control of their own lives and not fate. In Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” many soldiers show their interactions with one another by opening up to each other and trying to work together as a team. The relationship between the self and the changing world is that the the world is aware of individuals and revolves around them.

O’Brien uses a certain small character, named Curt Lemon, in one of the chapters of The Things They Carried to show how the character handled one of his fears in front of his fellow soldiers. In a small chapter of the book, the soldiers are scheduled to have their teeth cleaned by the dentist. When Curt Lemon finds out about this, his attitude changes completely. He switches from being “the tough guy” to spending some time alone in silence. “No way. Count me out. Nobody messes with these teeth.” (pg. 87) Curt Lemon was always playing the “tough guy” role, always bossing people around. But Lemon also kept mostly to himself, which made most of the other soldiers feel confused. Curt Lemon was one of those kinds of people who are good at hiding their true emotions. He used authority to hide his fear of the dentist from the others. The changing world set up the situation with the dentist in order to help Lemon cope with his feelings and open up. Though he didn’t actually admit to being afraid, it was clear to the others that the dentist has caused Lemon’s “assertive” role to disappear.

When soldiers return from their service in war, they usually have many wonderful stories to tell. Some of the stories may sound small to others, but these stories will stick to soldiers for a very long time. The main character, Tim, is reflecting on the stories that get passed around by their friends, and from generation to generation. “Vietnam was full of strange stories, some improbable, some well beyond that, but the stories that will last forever are those that swirl back and forth...between trivia and bedlam...” (pg. 89) The Soldiers who return from war do not realise that war can actually help them discover new traits about themselves, since the war is part of the changing world. The stories that they tell may sound small and meaningless, but in reality, these stories mean a lot to them. War is one of those rare places and situations that causes the soldiers to not only work together as a team, but to also discover hidden traits about them.

Tim O’Brien, the author of The Things They Carried, was actually drafted into Vietnam, which was most likely where his inspiration for the book came from. He based many of his characters on his fellow soldiers who fought alongside with him. “After all, I lived with them for five years while I was writing. In Vietnam people were being rotated constantly, so men you served with you would know six or eight months. These characters are the people I know best.'' (Tim O’Brien; ‘A Storyteller For the War That Won’t End’) The changing world sets itself up to allow people to open up about themselves. Because of this, the people will never forget their true personalities. After O’Brien returned from being drafted into war, he never forgot the “characters” het met during his service. His fellow soldiers inspired O’Brien to create the characters in The Things They Carried based off of them, because their traits and true emotions always stuck with him.

Soldiers play a big part in this novel to prove to some people who may not believe that fate exists. Everyone has their own little world revolving around them and is aware of every move they make. Although fate may not seem important or alive to lots of people, it should concern anyone that wonders how they got to where they are in life, especially soldiers returning from war.

Works Cited for Analytical Essay:

• Bruckner, D.J.R. "A Storyteller For the War That Won't End." N.p., 3 Apr. 1990. Web. 8 Jan. 2015. https://scienceleadership.instructure.com/courses/862/pages/tim-obrien-article-number-1?module_item_id=66183

Narrative Essay:

Every person likes to believe that they have the world revolving around them, but many of them do not believe in fate. Lots of people do not like the idea of not being in control of their own life, but they do however believe that everything happens for a reason. I am one of those people who prefer to keep their emotions hidden. People keep their emotions hidden by either acting like a jerk, or being the “funny guy.”

When I entered high school, I wanted to be mature and responsible. So, I hid all of my true emotions – my sadness, my anger towards others, and my love towards others. I hid my feelings by acting very funny, so that no one would believe that I have feelings besides happiness. However, looking back on it, there were still some moments in the last few years where I believed that fate exists. I believed that every situation I’ve been in with my friends was set up in order to get me to open up about my true emotions. Or, the decisions I’ve made helped me get to where I am today.

I was eleven when I became interested in filmmaking, and now I am learning more and more today. Whenever I have time, I stop what I’m doing and remember the journey to how I got here. The day I was interviewed to see if I would get accepted to Science Leadership Academy, my current high school, I presented to the teacher a short film I directed when I was thirteen. They looked very impressed with the final product.

“What was the process like? What was the most challenging part of production?“ they asked, desperate to hear my answers.

Every answer I gave them probably increased my chances of getting accepted, and I indeed did get accepted. I keep reflecting on what I said to them during my interview. I explained thoroughly what the process was like with my small film crew and the equipment we used and how we shot it. A lot of my friends presented science projects in their interviews, which were very interesting, but I think that in a school where there are usually a lot of science projects, it was one film I directed that got me in Science Leadership Academy. And now, When I look at the amazing friends I have here, I now treasure the film I made a few years ago, as it is what got me to be close friends with a lot of awesome people in high school.

The stories do not end there however, because now I’ve had moments with my friends that have caused me to think that maybe fate actually exists. It is as if there is a schedule that I don’t see, but it is there. In my sophomore year of high school, I met someone at school who had somewhat similar interests as me, thought I thought he was really annoying. In the beginning of this year, we ended up in the same video elective class. We were also in the same group to produce a short film for an assignment. I was not looking forward to working with him, but much to my surprise…I was right.

Filming took a long time when it could’ve taken much less time, and he kept bugging me about the editing process. However, now that the assignment is over, I now realize that this project actually gave me new tips on film techniques. I already knew a lot of what my partner was doing, but now I make sure to have pre-production finished before filming begins. This made me think that fate made me work with him in order to increase my filmmaking skills.

Whenever people ask me if I believe in fate, my first instinct would be to say no. Once I have a few seconds to analyze the question, I would turn to saying that it does exist. The changing world that I am characterizing is my growing friendships. They are the ones that move my story forward. My world is aware of me and creates these “scenarios” that create the path of my life. Everyone has their own world that revolves around them, and it shows clear situation examples of how fate can exist.

Analytical Essay:

Once trust gets broken, it is hard for it to be repaired. Trusting people with too many things is where people in the society goes wrong. In the book “The things they carried”, Tim O’Brien talks about trusting people. At times, O’Brien trusted people that he originally didn’t get along with or people that he really liked. Once you learn to trust someone you will be more open to facing obstacles.

Enemies can become friends, all it takes is to think positive and learn to trust them. With Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk, this happened for their relationship. They started out as enemies but it didn’t stay like this. “They did learn to trust each other. Over the next month, they teamed up on ambushes. They covered each other on patrol, shared a fox-hole and took turns pulling guard at night (O’Brien; page 65).” At first Jensen and Strunk didn’t start off as friends but that all changed. They built a level of trust for each other that showed they could face certain obstacles together. When they were enemies without trust, they wouldn’t have done those things with each other but with trust building, they were able to take risks by doing those things for each other.

When love is a factor with someone, you trust them with a lot of things and that’s what happened with Cross and Martha. On the first page of the book, O’Brien says that “more than anything he wanted her to love him as he loved her, but the letters were mainly chatty, elusive on the matter of love.” Cross trusted Martha with things that he never did with anyone. He trusted her to love him and by trusting her to do that, he was facing obstacles. He faced the possibility of her not loving him as he wanted her to love him.

Writing things on paper can help remember the trust that was built between two people. That is what Jensen and Strunk did. On page 65, “they drew it up on paper, signing their names and asking a couple of guys to act as witnesses (O’Brien).” The trust they built was reconfirmed by writing it on paper for one another. Once they trusted each other, they wrote it down on paper so that they knew they really trusted each other. Before building trust, Jensen and Strunk wouldn’t have asked guys to act as witnesses which they took the risk of facing that obstacle.

In Tim O’Brien’s shock of being drafted, he explains how he felt and how he reacted when he heard he was drafted into the war, which wasn’t a good reaction. He stated that he pounded on the typewriter when he heard it. He also said that “It was the most terrible summer of my life, worse than being in the war. My conscience kept telling me not to go, but my whole upbringing told me I had to.”  While O’Brien was scared of being drafted, he decided to follow his mind and trust his conscience. They say follow your conscience because it will never let anyone down but in his case, he followed what he was brought up to do. That told him he had to go so he went and hoped for the best. He trusted that he would be safe. By doing that, he was open to facing more obstacles. Once he said he was going to go, there is no turning back which caused him to take risks and face every obstacle that there was so that he could get home safe.

Works Cited for Analytical Essay:

"Tim O'Brien Article #1." N.p., n.d. Web. <https%3A%2F%2Fscienceleadership.instructure.com%2Fcourses%2F862%2Fpages%2Ftim-obrien-article-number-1%3Fmodule_item_id%3D66183>.

Narrative Essay:

“Trust is like a mirror. Once it’s broken it’s never seen the same again & no matter how much you try to put it back together, the cracks will always show.” said Ms. Bickley, my 8th grade writing teacher wrote on the chalkboard

In Middle School, I had a bad tendency of trusting people and them constantly letting me down so I stopped trusting people. I realized I had to trust people because trusting is the key to everything. If someone lets you down then that’s their fault. I started the school in 6th grade but my best friends until this day Salia and Kayla started the school in 7th grade. I had a guard up and didn’t want to trust them with anything or any of my business. Eventually we had a deep conversation and I told them everything about me. All the faults I think I have and all the positive things and they disagreed. The point that I will remember most is when I came out to them about my sexuality in 8th grade, they didn’t tell a soul. They were two people that I remember when I said “keep it as a secret,” they kept it as a secret while I told other people and when I told them that they went around and told the whole grade about me. People started looking at me strange and made rumors about me at that same time but I knew then I could trust them with everything and if I told them not to tell anyone, they wouldn’t tell anyone and I can trust them.  Before this experience I had trust issues in ways but I still thought the people I called my friends would never let me down. Most of them did prove me wrong. Luckily, after this incident happened I knew who I could trust and most the people that went around school telling people were not on my list of trustworthy people. Going into Middle School as one of the only people who didn’t know anyone, I had a lot of hopes that I would be able to trust more people and it took me all of my middle school career to learn that I couldn’t trust everyone. Even when I came into High School, I still had problems with trusting the wrong people but as I started growing into my High School career, I learned once again I can’t trust everybody and how many times people let me down. Now, I am very careful in who I trust because so many people have let me down in the past and I don’t want to go through that again. Having close people in my life that I know 100 percent that I can trust has made me be more open minded of things and that if I need to talk to someone I can always count on them to be by my side. Learning how to trust people has made me more open to facing obstacles because even though numerous people have let me down, I still try to trust other people so that they can prove to me if I should trust them in the future.  

Analytical Essay:

In the Yellow Bird’s, war changes the lives of many soldiers. PTSD is an outcome of the war. While the world remains ignorant to the war’s side effects, the soldiers continue to experience a change that will change their lives forever. There should be sympathy and understanding in the heart of every American when there’s a discussion of people at war.

“I was not surprised by the cruelty of my ambivalence back then. Nothing seemed more natural than someone getting killed... I had to see the world with clear eyes, to focus on the essential. We only pay attention to the rare things, and death was not rare.” p.11 People at war are stripped of morals and codes that they were taught at a young age. When in war, what’s wrong becomes right and what’s right becomes wrong. Killing is wrong, any type of violence is. Love is taught to be given to everyone, including your enemies because it’s the right thing to do. People at war are not allowed to have a heart or to show emotions because when they do, they show weakness, they’re supposed to be ruthless and be able to kill when demanded. For some, holding a gun is scary enough, but asking them to pull the trigger is another story. When Americans look at people who have been in war, compassion should be racing through their hearts because the soldiers did it so no one else had to. If soldiers were given sympathy, that would show that there is understanding. Having someone understand what you’ve been through can go a long way.

“As human beings, we have the blessing and the curse that we’re able to adapt to almost anything. No matter how extreme the circumstances you’re in, they become normal.” Because humans adapt, they don't understand. At one point, after readapting and readapting, humans stop. Some soldiers become adapted to the war lifestyle, so when they come home they can no longer readapt. As people try to understand people in war, they often figure out that war is something that needs to be experienced to understand. Once given the opportunity to walk a mile in their shoes, then there will be an understanding.

“I realized, as I stood there in the church, that there was a sharp distinction between what was remembered, what was told , and what was true. And I didn’t think I’d ever figure out which was which.” PTSD gives soldiers a fight or flight instinct caused by fear that’s stuck in their heads from war. This feeling that they have comes, even when they may not be in danger which may make them seem crazy. It comes with experience from physical harm.

“I wonder why people are the way they are. I wonder how do we justify the things that we do, because it always seems like we are doing terrible things. But the stories that we tell ourselves are always about our goodness and our idealism and that contradiction has been interesting to me throughout my whole life.” Humans try to come up with an explanation for everything. They’re always trying to fix something. Some things in life just can't be fixed. Life does not owe anyone an explanation, somethings you can only wonder why they happen.

There should be sympathy and understanding in the heart of every American when there’s a discussion of people at war. They do they job no one else wants to do. To label them as crazy is wrong, they should only be labeled heroic.

Narrative Essay:

From a small child, I was always told to reach for the stars.  “You can do anything you want in life, you just have to want it and work for it.” I remember being asked what I wanted to be when I was 9. At nine years old, you don’t the variety of jobs that are offered in the world. “I wanna work at McDonalds, it’s my favorite fast food restaurant.”

The conversation stopped. “You wanna struggle your whole life?

“You won’t even be able to support your family?”

Questions were being thrown at me. I’m just a kid, I don’t understand what I’m saying and why I’m saying. I honestly thought people at McDonalds were very kind people. Who else wants to stand at a window and wait on people. Jobs like this should be appreciated, not shunned upon.

I remember when my brother said he wanted to be a cop. My mom wanted to know why none of us wanted to be a doctor. She said McDonalds workers aren’t paid enough and being a cop is a dangerous job. All of a sudden, that statement about being whatever we want turns out to be false.

You can be anything that isn’t a danger and pays well. Society has conjured up what is an acceptable job and what isn’t. Everyone plays a part in the way the world is now, but before you can play a part, you have to find a part. In The Yellow Birds, the main character found his part in becoming a soldier.

Bartle forgot the importance if his role. He began to build a friendship with Murphy. He promised his mother that he would bring Murphy back safe and sound. The thing about promises is that you can’t make one unless it’s something you can control, you can't control death and who it strikes. That’s what the world revolves around; control. Some are born with control, some are born without it. People can’t control what they’re born into but they can control what they do with it and whether they want to work a McDonald’s job or be a doctor, it’s their decision. They should be appreciated regardless.