Essay #2

Frankie Pena
English 102, Essay #2
Laura, Cline,
October 8th, 2010

Contrast of “Tim O’Brien” and “Sean Huze”

The day is Thursday the 7th and after reading a passage from Tim O’Brien “On The Rainy River” and Sean Huze’s monolog “SGT Williams,” I had an extremely heart- felt moment about what the two stories said to me. We do not go to war because we want to. We go to war because our founding fathers have fought for our freedom and fighting for our country just comes with the title of being a hero. It is expected if we are called to duty that we will arise and except any challenge because if we don’t we will look like a coward.
When we sit around at home playing “Call Of Duty” we all talk about how bad we are at sniping with a 50 caliber rifle and how we could totally pull off this lifestyle in real life. We don’t realize just how we would really react if we were called up to the line in a war.
The author from “On The Rainy River” quotes “All of us , I suppose like to believe that in a moral emergency we will behave like the heroes of our youth, bravely and forth rightly, without thought of personal loss or discredit”( O’Brien,39). The author clearly points out that we believe if a situation is put out in front of us that we will just jump right to the gun without thinking what the turnout could be.

When the situation of war has called upon us we are not quite ready to play the role of hero; this isn’t the war we want to fight. The author quotes “I was drafted to fight a war I hated. I
was twenty-one years old. Young, yes, and politically naïve, but even so the American war in Vietnam seemed to me wrong” (O’Brien,40). The author clearly shows that he felt the war he was going to was wrong but he had to go because he was now enlisted and therefore is expected to act like a hero about the situation.
Those who think that war is good for us should come out and put their money where their mouth is. The author points out “There should be a law, I thought. If you support a war, if you think it’s worth the price, that’s fine, but you have to put your own precious fluids on the line” (O’Brien,42). The author clearly expresses the idea that we look like cowards if we don’t want to go to war, those who say that going to war is good should go.
The thought of being the only coward in the neighborhood that ran for Canada and not for war was embarrassing enough to make a person stay through the pain. The author quotes “It had nothing to do with morality. Embarrassing that’s all it was, and right then I submitted. I would go to war - I would kill and maybe die - because I was embarrassed not to” (O’Brien,59). The author clearly gives it away that if we do not go to war we will look like a coward and that he rather die than run like a coward.
The author “Tim O’Brien” from “On The Rainy River” clearly is not fond of war but instead of going to Canada he went to war because the guilt and embarrassment kept eating him up.
The author in the monolog “SGT WILLIAMS” joined the army with belief that the war was going to be everything he expected, but turns out reality struck. The author “Sean Huze quotes “It happened every time we got alerted to a possible NBC attack, we had to don our rubber gloves, put on that fucking mask, and cinch our hoods on our heads, No airflow
once so ever. I guess that’s the point, but it was more than I could bear” (Huze,7). The author did not believe that in the war it was going to be all about just grabbing the gun and shooting, then he found out that they had to wear SCBA (self contained, breathing, apparatus) which can be a pain on the skull. The thought and feeling of being suffocated was really getting to the sergeant and it was turning out to be more than he bargained for. The author says “I did the unthinkable. I broke the seal of my mask” (Huze,7). This is clearly proving that some things are harder than they occur to be and maybe war is one of those mind tricks. Once reality has hit we begin to realize what is really going on and what were we thinking. The author quotes “…so, folks are all pissed off about there not being any weapons of mass destruction shit, not me. My ass is damn lucky there were no WAD over there” (Huze,7).

Clearly it takes just one experience to change someone’s total view on the outlook. The author Sean Huze realized after he joined the war that in order to fight for your country and to be called a hero that it takes an extreme amount of work. These two authors really did contrast. Throughout the whole “On The Rainy River” the author believed that the war was dumb and that he shouldn’t be called a coward just because he thought he could be doing something better with his life other than war. Although he talked himself into going to the war because he thought that if he didn’t go to war he would be considered a town coward. After he went to war and came back home he realized that he was a coward for going to war, because he ran from his fear of being called a coward. With “SGT Williams” by Sean Huze, this author thought completely differently; he thought fighting for his country would be easy and he could claim the title of a hero with just a few kills and that be it. Well reality really hit him and once he experienced war his total perception on it was different. He couldn’t wait to get out and go be with his family.

Links;
www.imdb.com/name/nm1011341/
www.alternet.org/world/20358
www.flixster.com/actor/sean-huze
www.illyria.com/tobsites.html
www.illyria.com/tobhp.html

Works cited page:
Huze, Sean. The SandStorm. Hollywood, California: 2004. Print. Pg7
O’Brien, Tim. Tim O’Brien The Things They Carried. Boston, New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1990. Pg39.
O’Brien, Tim. Tim O’Brien The Things They Carried. Boston, New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1990. Pg40
O’Brien, Tim. Tim O’Brien The Things They Carried. Boston, New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1990. Pg42
O’Brien, Tim. Tim O’Brien The Things They Carried. Boston, New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1990. Pg59