Blog Activity of the Week 1:

While reading The Things They Carried, I did have a feeling that it was a much different war book than any other I had previously read. Considering the fact that I haven't read a book on war in quite a while, I do not know if it is my place to criticize. However it did in fact make me look deeper into the Vietnam War. I remember being in a class, in middleschool, where I researched the War intensively and even interviewed a War veteran. Alas, I do not remember much of what I had then learned and I am left with only a rudimentary view of the Vietnam War. This being said I found the book entirely enjoyable to read and am glad that I was made to read it.

I found that by reading of O'Brian's experiences, factual or fictional, I gained a portal of insight into what the war really was to the soldiers. I was living what he lived and was feeling what he felt. And I think this is really what made The Things They Carried a more different book than any other war book I have read.

Fears

I have many fears: fire, drowning, public speaking, death. But none are so terrifying as heights. Im not scared of heights in the classical sense, that is, whenever I am standing on a platform higher than I should be, I freak out. No, that is not the case with me. I can handle standing on the edge of the cliffs at Devils Lake, that is not the problem for me. My problem is in the getting down part. I sometimes find myself in a predicament much the same as a curious feline would. Im apt enough to make my way up a structure only to find myself terrified of getting down. This should not pose as much of a problem as it does. One would think to themselves that they should not climb such structures for they know that they will be unable to descend the towering structure upon their arrival at the summit. However, I seem to always find myself crouched at the top of something, for fear of a powerful and brutal meeting with the ground below. What makes this idea so intensely nerve-racking is that I always end up in that situation unwittingly. If not for this predicament my fear of heights would be null and void.