Week 12 Closed Post

I want talk about a theme that I call connection. And it's not just the connection that people have that fought in the war, but more of a connection that everything has to everything. As I've been reading I have been getting better at noticing things that were put there as a hint about the underlying meaning. A specific example I want to mention is the part were Emmett fills his glass with Pepsi without adding any ice. When I read that I thought, "what the hell did he write that for?" So I underlined it and to my surprise it came up again except this time it was Sam poured her a glass of Pepsi with no ice. That's when I thought there is got to be some connection there. When Sam talks about things that she does it's always me and Emmett do this and that. It's like a set schedule, and she tries more and more to be apart of what Emmett does. Sam sometimes will go to McDonald's with him, or to the Vietnam reunion dance. Emmett and Sam watch a lot of war movies like M*A*S*H that just fuel Sam's wonderment about the Vietnam War. By imitating things that Emmett does and hanging out with all his old war buddies she is molding herself to be able to have more of a feeling of what it was like to be in Nam. She is fascinated with it and is almost all she can talk about. Sam is always asking question's about her dad and things that went on while Emmett was there. Her passion to know the war has fueled a weapon that I fear has pushed her to the edge of insanity. She states how she gets vivid images of the war like a Vietnamese mom caring her dead baby around and lots of others. Sam's never been there, but from all the information she has gathered, she is building a connection that her brain recognizes as real. You kind of see this connection in "The Things they Carried," specifically chapter "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong." It is in this story you see similarities between the guys girlfriend that came over to Vietnam and Sam in "In Country." In her case she is surrounded in the element and becomes consumed in it, and starts going out on night missions and other things. She also wore a necklace of ears that was also mentioned in "In Country." Sometimes war is just to much for the mind to handle and it molds itself to be able to cope with whats going on around you. From an outside perspective you most likely are viewed as a crazy person, but from the inside your right as rain. I believe everything is connected in life and this shows throughout all the novels we have read. The war not only effects the individual there but the families of sons of war who have either lost them to the enemy or have suffered the pain that comes with PTSD and other wounds.