The narrator of the story "The Ghost Soldiers" says, "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world." What might he mean by this?
Discuss O'Brien's war injuries and why he wants revenge on Bobby Jorgenson.
Examine O'Brien's reaction to being reassigned away from the heat of battle and what happens when the men from Alpha Company return to base.
Discuss O'Brien's meeting with Jorgenson and O'Brien's and Azar's plan for revenge.
How has O'Brien changed throughout the war?
In the novel, the narrator of the story "The Ghost Soldiers" says, "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world.” The chapter’s title “The Ghost Soldiers” is referring to the soldiers fighting in the war who are afraid of everything around them because they are always in potential danger. The Vietnamese war was primarily in the jungle. Since the American soldiers were unfamiliar with the landscape and booby traps, they could easily take the wrong turn into danger or death. War has shown these young men things that they have never seen before and that will leave burdens on them, both mentally and physically. War has “haunted” them, and therefore has changed them to start haunting others. For example, O’Brien is forced to feel severe pain from a gunshot wound because the new medic, Bobby Jorgenson, was afraid of his own well-being during wartime. In result, O’Brien wants to get revenge on Jorgenson by spooking him when he and the Alpha Company return to base. O’Brien is happy that his buddies are there but is more concerned about his revenge on Jorgensen. Mitchell Sanders explains that he would be wasting his time since Jorgenson has changed and is part of the Alpha Company and that O’Brien is not. O’Brien is able to get Azar on board to spook Jorgenson by pulling ropes to make an illusion that enemies are nearby. Their attempts fail and O’Brien sees that Jorgenson did change. Remorseful, O’Brien thinks to himself, “after seven months in the bush I realized that those high civilized trapping had somehow been crushed under the weight of the simple daily realities. I’d turned mean inside.” O’Brien’s actions show how war can change a person, being one of the frightful things about war.
ReplyDeleteThe narrator of the story "The Ghost Soldiers" says, "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world." This quote refers to the environment of Vietnam and how things that you can’t see are felt in terrifying ways. For example the landscape of Vietnam is something that scared the American soldiers. To these soldiers, the land was a complete mystery. This lack of knowledge about the land gave the soldiers a constant sense of danger and fear. This feeling caused many soldiers to come out of the war completely changed. An example of a soldier being affected is when Jorgensen failed to aid O’Brien when he was shot. In a way, Jorgensen was paralyzed. He froze, and he didn’t know what to do and how to do it. Also, Jorgensen was a new medic, which makes him very vulnerable to the mystery of the war. O’Brien was upset that Jorgensen took so long to help him, so he wanted to get revenge by scaring him. When O’Brien was sent away to heal, he feels out of place. He misses being with his friends in the war. When Jorgensen returned with the platoon, O’Brien realizes that Jorgensen is part of the group, and he isn’t. Jorgensen was able to experience what it's like to have nowhere to hide with the ghosts. He became a good medic and friends with the platoon. O’Brien is dissatisfied with how Jorgensen tries to settle things, so he thinks of a way to get revenge. When Jorgensen was on guard duty, O'Brien and Azar set up a contraption that would make it seem like there was enemies or ghosts. This plan backfires because Jorgensen had changed by being in the war and he doesn’t get scared. This whole ordeal shows how the war changed O’Brien. He came into the war a quiet, soft, and thoughtful person, but the war brought out his mean side. He felt like he could do something evil, like hurt Jorgensen.
ReplyDelete"When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world" means that war brings out new senses and turns on your survival mode, making everything 'human' about you dissipate. You essentially become an animal when put in the situations soldiers are. O'Brien at one point in the story was hurt and Jorgenson, the medic, was paralyzed by fear and became inhumane himself. In the situations they were put through, everyone looks out for themselves- fear and trauma takes control of all movements and decisions. This leads to O'Brien's perception of Jorgenson as weak and selfish. Because of the lack of aid, O'Brien was sent back away from his troop, who he viewed as family. This built a deep hatred for Jorgenson. O'Brien became selfish, self-centered and just as scared as Jorgenson was, though he'd never admit it while in war. The reserved, kind kid who lived back in America had become just as 'inhumane' as Jorgenson, and just as animal as it comes. This led to the plot of scaring Jorgenson, where he shot a gun away from him in the dark. O'Brien wanted to see the failed medic in dead fear, as he was when he was shot. O'Brien became everything he thought he was not, a man of war.
ReplyDeleteJorgeson is the ultimate example of proving that at war, "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world." This means when you're frightened, senses are at an all time high and you're extra aware of your surroundings. While the soldiers were not on their own home land, they had to pay attention more than they ever have before. Being afraid makes you want to see things that maybe aren't even real, just to tell yourself that everything is going to be alright. In the chapter “The Ghost Soldiers”, O’ Brien makes it clear that the war worries can leave even more scars than being physically hurt. This is what leads him and Azar to get his “revenge” on Bobby Jorgeson.
ReplyDeleteO’ Brien shares his horror story of being shot and the anger which is still inside of his head. As he was shot, Jorgeson froze up and was not able to be treated for shock. This put O’ Brien in an immense amount of pain that still haunts him. His “revenge” is to try and scare Jorgenson by pretending there are enemies close by. Mitchell Sanders tries to talk him out of getting his revenge because he is now part of the Alpha Company. Although Jorgeson apologizes to O’ Brien, he still wants to get back at him. O’ Brien and Azar’s plan ended up backfiring because Jorgenson was able to “pay close attention to the world” and had to react to the flares. I believe he was able to pay attention and knew it was a joke because Jorgenson has been so afraid of messing up again, like he did with O’ Brien.O’ Brien has changed throughout the war by turning himself into a dedicated soldier, even though that is completely who he is not. In Vietnam, he had to choose, either face the horror of war life or try and hide the reality of what he is doing.
In The Things They Carried, the narrator of "Ghost Soldiers" says, "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world." What does the narrator mean by this? The line before this, the narrator explains, "It's a hard thing to explain...but the presence of death and danger has a way of bringing you fully awake. It makes things vivid." I believe that heightened emotions, like fear, make the world through your eyes clearer and sharper. For example, when O'Brien is shot he focuses on individual blades of grass and pebbles thinking that this is the last he will ever see. The quote to me means, if these are the last moments of my life, I want to remember every detail of it. Therefore, it focuses your mind making you see things you never saw before.
ReplyDeleteThe quote, "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world." Is a pretty straight forward one. When you're scared you observe everything in great detail. You'll scan your eyes over something you've looked at plenty of times and notice something new just because you are scared and alert. O'Brien has been shot twice and the first time i'd say the injury was worse, but his medic, Rat Kiley, wasn't new and he knew what he was doing. The second time he was only shot in the butt. The problem was that he was going into shock and his new medic, Bobby Jorgenson, was scared and was not great as a medic. O'Brien wants revenge because he feels it was Jorgenson's fault he suffered in shock. O'Brien felt like he wasn't a part of the team anymore when he got reassigned. When Alpha Company returned to base, O'Brien talked to Jorgenson about his wound. O'Brien felt Jorgenson didn't fully understand what he had been through, scared and alone on the field of battle. So O'Brien got Azar to help him pull a prank on Jorgenson. They spooked him with a fictional ghost when Jorgenson was on his night shift. After it sort of worked, O'Brien was satisfied and understood how fear changes you.
ReplyDeleteWhen one is afraid, fear heightens their senses. You suddenly are aware of your surroundings, every creak or the rustle of leaves. You begin to see things you never saw before because fear makes you see every fine detail around you. During the war, O'Brien was shot and Bobby Jorgenson was the new medic. He did a terrible job on the bullet wound and O'Brien almost died from shock. Tim would hold a grudge on for not coming fast enough and doing a terrible job. When Tim was reassigned, he felt relief because he finally had normal working hours, a place to sleep, and so much more that the soldiers out there didn't have. When his friends come to the base, he seems out of touch with them. He had been replaced by Bobby Jorgenson. When he had talked to Bobby, Bobby tried to explain what happened buy O'Brien didn't buy it. He was not satisfied with the apology. He wanted more than just an apology, he wanted to make it even. Tim and Azar scouted out Bobby's bunker, where he would be on night watch. He wanted to give Bobby a good scare, but when he done, Azar decided to take it a step further. Tim and Bobby eventually called it even. O'Brien used to be the type of guy who thought the war was the wrong thing so he almost fled to Canada. He used to be innocent. During the war, he became sentimental, he became a soldier.
ReplyDeleteThe fear that Tim feels among being shot, has nothing to do with the pain of the injury, but rather the fact that a blade of grass may be the last things he sees. Bobby's ignorance, and fear for his own last moment, almost robbed O'Brien's of this own. The fear broadens one horizon because when you are in light of death, the appreciation for life is so much stronger. Even in Vietnam, one can appreciate the ghost mountains so much more. Speaking of ghosts, the title for this chapter fits so perfectly because not only does it represent the mystery and ghostliness of the mountains, but also represents the ghost that Tim became. Upon his return from Alpha Company, he is isolated from the rawness of the other soldiers, along with his last moment, Bobby also stole the soul of Tim. His injury pulled him away from the soldier he once was, it coddled him out of the war. The revenge that Tim wishes to see, is pretty 'sick', but also well justified. He stole his personality. However, as Azar and Tim carry out their plan, and things go out of hand, Tim sees the soldier in Bobby. He knows that if he can no longer feel the pride and pain of fighting, at least someone as careful *from experience* as Bobby is out there defending the country. The newfound sentiment on Tim's end was always there, ever since he met the apologetic Bobby, however, once Tim felt fulfilled by the damage done, he tried to stop. He didn't want to rob Bobby of his heart, because in war it isn't always an eye for an eye, as long as your on the same side.
ReplyDeleteThe narrator of the story "The Ghost Soldiers" says, "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world." This quote is trying to make the readers realize what many soldiers went through when they were close to death. This shows that it doesn't matter how strong the person is, he/she becomes frightened by the image of death. An example of a soldier being frightened by death is the medic, Jorgensen. When O’Brien is shot and needs help Jorgensen is paralyzed with fear. O’Brien wants revenge on Jorgensen because when O’Brien was shot Jorgensen took a long time to help him because he was scared for his own well-being. O’Brien is sent away to heal but he feels out of place. He misses being with his friends in the war. O'Brien's and Azar's plan for revenge is to pull ropes and make an illusion that enemies are nearby. O'Brien came into the war a nice and quite person but the war brought out the mean side in him. He even fells like he could do something evil.
ReplyDeleteThe quote "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world," means that when you're terrified of something, your senses seem to heighten. As O'Brien has stated in the novel, when you feel threatened or endangered, everything else around you seems to be so much more alive.
ReplyDeleteO'Brien was injured multiple times throughout the novel. This one time in particular, O'Brien was shot in his posterior and was going into shock. It took the medic, Bobby Jorgenson, over ten minutes to get to O'Brien. By the time Jorgenson had arrived, the damage was already done. Some time had passed from the injury, yet O'Brien still had reoccuring infections and mobility issues from the wound. Because of Jorgenson freezing up when O'Brien needed his help, O'Brien vowed to get revenge on Jorgenson.
After O'Brien was shot, he was reassigned to the base to supply the helicopters and to take inventory. O'Brien described himself feeling completely disconnected from the Alpha Company when they came in for a cool down. O'Brien felt as if they couldn't connect on the same level as they had before.
A few days later, O'Brien finally met Jorgenson at the base. Jorgenson said he was sorry for not getting to O'Brien sooner, but O'Brien silently decided that the simple apology wasn't enough for what had happened. After the short conversation between O'Brien and Jorgenson, O'Brien then went to Azar to make plans for revenge. The intent was to scare Jorgenson enough to make him believe that there was someone else out there near his bunker. O'Brien knew that having just enough sound emitted could cause a soldier's mind to start imagining things. The plan went all too well, and O'Brien felt some pity for Jorgenson. Later, Jorgenson recognized O'Brien for the prank and told him that he deserved it. No hard feelings were left between the two.
From the start of the novel to the end, O'Brien changed drastically due to the war. In the beginning, O'Brien was more timid and kind towards the others; he tended to keep to himself than socialize with his comrades. At the end, when O'Brien was left on the base, he described this evil he always felt inside of him; almost like he could lash out at any second and feel no regret about it. O'Brien quickly realized that the war had hardened his feelings towards humanity.
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ReplyDeleteWhen the narrator of the story "The Ghost Soldiers" states, "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world," it captures the essecnce of how terrifying situations can essentially "parazlyze" the mind and body of the individual. Moments like these cause one to look at the world through a different perspective and allows them to notice details that would have gone unnoticed in a normal state of mind. When O'Brien is wounded, he begins to focus on insignificant objects such as a blade of grass and a small pebble and questions whether those two objects will be the last things his eyes ever see. Bobby Jorgenson is supposed to attend to O'Brien immediantly after he is shot, but he is traumatized with fear and takes a long time. Upon returning from his injuries, O'Brien is transferred away from te Alpha Company to a safer location and position, however, he deeply misses the homefront. Fellow soldier Mitchell Sanders explains to O'Brien that he should no longer be upset at Bobby Jorgenson because he is one of them now, and O'Brien is not. Shortly after, O'Brien and Azar plot a revenge attack on Jorgenson. The pair maneuver ropes to give the illusion that the enemy is nearby and set off numerous flares to scare Jorgenson. By the end of the war, O'Brien transformed into everything he believed he was not, a man of war who used violence to his advantage.
ReplyDeleteWhen the narrator of the story "The Ghost Soldiers" says, "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world," he is saying that when someone is really afraid, they become petrified and everything seems to "lock up" and not work how it should. When O'Brien was injured, he said that instead of focusing on just his wound, he would zone in on something small, such as a blade of grass or a pebble on the ground. during this, Jorgenson was supposed to help O'Brien but he was so afraid that he felt paralyzed. In order to be taken care of, O'Brien was reassigned away from battle, however, he missed being involved. He felt isolated from the Alpha Company when they returned because he could not connect with them on the same level as they used to before his injury.
ReplyDeleteAt the base, O'Brien and Jorgenson talk about what happened on the battlefield. Jorgenson explains how paralyzed in fear he was when he should have been helping. However, O'Brien did not think that Jorgenson understood the pain that he put him through. O'Brien and Azar plan to scare Jorgenson while he serves an all-night duty by making him think that there are enemies nearby. Throughout the war, O'Brien went from the man who wanted nothing to do with it, to a man who was completely devastated by it and so caught up in it that he could not stop himself.
When the narrator of the story "The Ghost Soldiers" says, "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world," it shows how much the soldiers went through in almost giving into death. The narrator says this as if it applies to everyone, which it does. When O'Brien get hurt he needs help from Jorgenson. Jorgenson is struck with a sudden fear that impacts his ability to help O'Brien. O'Brien then gets moved away from war to get healthy, but is still angry with the medic. O'Brien starts the book off a kind and innocent person, then war hits, and afterwards O'Brien is never the same.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Narrator of "The Ghost Soldiers" says, "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world," he speaks of how the human mind will begin to analyze the places around you thinking that it is the last thing that you will se. This can be seen when O'Brian gets shot in and he is laying on the ground, while there he looks at the object around him like a rock and a blade of grass and thinks that those will be the last thing he sees. After O'Brian is injured he yells for a medic but the new medic ,Jorgenson, hesitates to go and treat him and when he does treat him he does a bad job which leads to O'Brian not being able to sit and sleep correctly for a while. After O'Brian was moved away from the battle he missed being out with his company and when they came to where he was it did not seem like he belonged anymore. When O'Brian met Jorgenson for the first time after the incident he was still mad at him but he began to find it harder and harder to hate him and in the end after scaring him with amo cans filled with empty shell casings and flares, they became more friendly with each other.
ReplyDeleteWhen the narrator of "The Ghost Soldiers" says, "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world," He is saying that when you are in a normal state of mind, you tend not to notice the meager things. You tend not to think about something small on the ground like O'Brian when he's looking at the pebble and the blade of grass. He thought that was the last thing he would ever see. When somebody is taking a run for example. They probably won't pause to notice a stick on the side of the road, a leaf that fell into a pond or an ant on the sidewalk. If they were in a situation like O'Brian, maybe they would look at those slight things and really pay attention to every detail. You begin to see things in a different perspective when you are put in a dangerous and/or deadly situation, where you might not see those little things ever again. When O'Brian is wounded, it takes Jorgenson 10 minutes to get to him to help. When he treats the wound, he doesn't do an amazing job. After he is treated, O'Brian cannot sit or sleep correctly. When O'Brian moves away from the battlefield, he missed it deeply and he felt incredibly misplaced when his company came to him. O'Brian meets Jorgenson for the first time since the incident, and was still upset with him. After a while, it became hard for him to stay angry. When O'Brian scares him with the amo cans, they start to become closer. O'Brian goes from wanting nothing to do with the war around him, to suffering from it and getting wrapped up in it.
ReplyDelete“When you’re afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world” illustrates the effects of PTSD of a scarred soldier that has been through Hell and back. O'Brien's' eyes were opened up when he was wounded during the war and he started to notice what was transpiring around him. When the new medic, Jorgenson was introduced to the war, he was frightened and when O’Brien was calling for help he tried patching the fallen soldier but he did a faulty procedure which led to O’Brien requiring withdrawal from the war. Although O’Brien was mad at Jorgenson, the two eventually became more peaceful. O’Brien has changed throughout the war, with his injury and interaction with different people, he has become more aware and understanding of what was going on around him which led him to build a mindset of hatred. The vulnerable man O’Brien used to be was gone and now he was a warrior determined to fight a war.
ReplyDeleteIn O’Brien’s quote, he means that when you’re afraid and think that you might die, you begin to see the world in a new light, if only for the internal satisfaction of seeing the world anew for one last time. In the passage, he is talking about how he missed the war when he was immobilized by his injury. He says that he missed being in those situations because when he was getting shot at in some random forest in southern Vietnam, he felt the camaraderie and the connection he had made with not only his fellow soldiers, but also the land itself and the people who called it home. You see a pebble on the ground or a blade of grass and you recognize its beauty and strength in that very moment, only because it might be the last thing you see. He said that he felt “fully awake” out there in the warzone because it helps you to see the little things in life and cherish them for what they are. His war injuries, which were both bullet wounds, only made him cherish those moments more, because, once he got shot and was forced to lay on his belly for a month, he began to miss the war. He blamed this all on Bobby Jorgenson for two reasons, I noticed. The first reason was that Jorgenson had failed to do his job in making sure that he stayed alive and healthy enough to fight. If it hadn’t been for Jorgenson’s malpractice, he believed, ten he would still be out there fighting. The second reason was simply that there was no one else to blame. He couldn’t blame the war, or the people funding it, or the Vietnamese, or God, or his fellow soldiers, or the people who voted or didn’t vote, or even himself, because there really is no one to blame in war, in the grand scheme of things. He used Bobby Jorgenson as a personification of the personal consequences of war. He wants revenge because if he can’t make Bobby feel the way he did, then he would have to deal with his own grievances about the war himself, alone, with no one else to understand. When he was sent away from the warzones and his close friends, he felt a sort of emptiness. Stripped of his ability to fight, even after he had recovered from his bullet wound, he found no reason for him to even be in this foreign country, surrounded by other privileged soldiers who slept in bunks and not latrine fields, and who drank at night instead of marching across the Batangan Peninsula, exhausted and aching. When his old pals returned to base, he found that he had lost his place in their group. He was no longer considered their friend, and instead, Bobby Jorgenson had taken his place. It was incredibly upsetting, which is why he decided to lash out and prank Jorgenson. Even though Jorgenson apologized and tried his hardest to explain what he was going through at the time of O’Brien’s injury, O’Brien did not accept and instead hatched up a plan to prank him into thinking there was a ghost haunting him during his night watch.
ReplyDeleteIn the beginning of the war, O’Brien was a scared teenager who openly opposed the war and even ran away from his home when he found out that he would be drafted. However, throughout the novel, you noticed that he begins to change. Instead of being sickened at the sight of his fellow soldiers almost mocking a dead body and pretending it is still alive, as he was in the beginning of the war, O’Brien simply brushes it off as a part of war. Granted, he isn’t wrong, and death and war almost always come hand in hand, but his description of dead bodies in the chapter “The Ghost Soldiers” differs quite a lot from his description of the dead boy he describes in “The Man I Killed.” It shows that he has become insensitive to death throughout his time in Vietnam. Another example of his change is the fact that he feels empty after being taken from the fighting, and how he says that he missed the adventures and danger that he experienced. He almost invites the fighting, waits for it and relishes in the fact that he is fighting for America and would take a bullet in the side to do so.
The quote "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world," means that when you're terrified of something, your senses seem to heighten. When a person’s mind is in this state, it causes them to look at the world and notice details they may have not noticed if they had a relaxed state of mind. An example of this is when O’Brien was shot in the posterior. He focused on insignificant objects such as a small pebble or a blade of grass wondering if those objects would be the last things he would ever see. Bobby Jorgenson, a new medic, is supposed to attend to O'Brien immediately after he is shot, but he is paralyzed with fear and takes over ten minutes. After this injury, he is transferred to the base to take inventory and supply helicopters, but he misses the homefront with his friends. Mitchell Sanders, a fellow soldier, explains to O’Brien that he shouldn’t be angry at Jorgenson because he is now apart of the Alpha Company and O’Brien is not. Shortly after, Azar and O’Brien attempt to scare Jorgenson by maneuvering ropes to give the illusion that an enemy is nearby and set off numerous flares. After the prank had little success, O'Brien was satisfied with himself and understood how fear can change you.
ReplyDeleteThe narrator of the story "The Ghost Soldiers" says, "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world." What the narrator of this quote is trying to express is the psychological battle soldiers had to go through during the Vietnam War. Their brains were constantly being tested through the war, but this challenge is more apparent during the night. During a battle O'Brien is shot in the butt and suffers from severe shock as he has to wait for the medic, Bobby Jorgenson, to come help him. Jorgenson freezes up with fear in the moment and it takes him several minutes for him to build up enough courage to go help O'Brien. Later O'Brien found out that he had almost died from shock and his wound became infected so he was released from his duty of combat and transferred to headquarters. His wound never fully healed and he always carried the memories of embarrassment from his infected butt wound. After all of that, O'Brien blamed Jorgenson for it all. He blamed Jorgenson for the constant pain, the embarrassment, and for his releasement from his company. O'Brien wanted Jorgenson to suffer the way he had to. O'Brien was happy to be away from the heat of the battle at first, but he soon began to miss it. He began to miss the adrenaline of combat and the feeling of family. When his old team, Alpha Company, comes to the headquarters O'Brien is thrilled to see his old buddies, but he soon realizes that he's an outcast now. He could no longer relate to them and for that reason felt a rift beginning to form between them and him. The first meeting with Jorgenson and O'Brien since the incident doesn't go well and ends in O'Brien peeling out of the parking lot. O'Brien and Azar come up with a plan to scare Jorgenson while he's on night watch. As O'Brien and Azar execute their plan, O'Brien begins to realize how much the war has changed him. He remembers coming into this war soft and innocent and now he sees the war has brought out his mean side. He felt so much anger towards Jorgenson that O'Brien was willing to hurt him in order to make them even. O'Brien's need for revenge on Jorgenson is just another way to express the change war has on people.
ReplyDeleteWhen the narrator of "The Ghost Soldiers" says, "When your afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world." He is expressing how the men where so distraught based on their situation their emotions became severally heightened which caused them to perceive everything around them as a threat. The men were so scared that it put their attention on an all time high alert which made them pay attention to details in the world that no one would otherwise pick up on.
ReplyDeleteO'Brien's war injury happened during Bobby Jorgenson's first shoot out, which is why he froze and did not help O'Brien quick enough when he was shot in the Butt. This angered O'Brien for a very long time because if Bobby would have gotten to him in a reasonable amount of time he would have been way better off in regards to his injury.
When O'Brien is pulled from active duty with the Alpha company he feels helpless and like belongs back on active duty with his team. After Alpha company returns it becomes apparent that he is no longer in sink with the team when his friend will not help him get his revenge on Jorgenson by making him think enemies are near. Shortly after this O'Brien meets with Jorgenson to clear the air and Jorgenson makes a compelling case for O'Brien to drop his grudge against him. Although their talk may have made it more difficult for O'Brien to out right hate Jorgenson he still was set on getting his revenge.
Before being drafted into the war O'Brien was very against it and did not believe that the United States had any business in it. Once O'Brien was drafted into the war he was changed and became very invested in his unit, which changed him forever. Motivated in the beginning by fear, O'Brien dove into becoming a good soldier and it changed his perspective on the war. O'Brien learns that he is strongly influenced by his own fear.
When the Narrator says "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world" he is showing the train of thought that goes through a persons head when they are truly scared. He is explaining that when you're the night watchmen you see shapes in the night, hear the sound of silence, and feel the cold of the dark. He emphasizes that once you sit there long enough it all plays tricks on your mind and its hard to overcome the fear that creeps in. O'Brien knows what this feels like and when his old unit comes to where he is now stationed he wants revenge on the medic Bobby Jorgenson for the injuries he caused him, physically and mentally. When Jorgenson didn't try to help O'Brien after he had been shot, O'Brien almost died and he had gone into shock. Partially due to Jorgenson's mistake O'brien was reassigned and separated from the men who had become his friends and support. When those men that used to support O'Brien came to the place where he was reassigned to he realizes that the dynamic had changed and he was no longer part of the group, Bobby Jorgenson was. O'Brien does talk to Jorgenson and although he apologizes about what happened O'brien still wants revenge, and when Jorgenson is the night watchmen O'Brien found unique waysto heighten the fears that he knew would creep up on Jorgenson in the night. Obrien changed quite a bit throughout the war, at first he was strongly against it and tried to flee from the draft. After caving and joining he takes his duty seriously and lets the harsh realities of Vietnam change him. O'Brien states at one point that it happens to everyone, people come in clean and go out dirty. O'brien learns that there is a an aspect of constant fear that a person lives with and there are things people face in life that are unimaginable that no one will ever understand and by the end of the war he finds ways to live with that.
ReplyDeleteWhen the narrator of “The Ghost Soldiers” says, "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world," what he means by saying this is that your mind beings to play tricks on you. The more scared or paranoid a person is the more they think they have to watch for, so their mind is very aware of everything, even things that could be insignificant. When O’Brien was shot twice during the war, he became more alert. The first time he was shot he was taken care of nicely by Rat Kiley, and he healed. The second time he was taken care of a man named Jorgenson who did not treat his shock correctly, so O’Brien was in a great deal of pain. This immense amounts of pain caused O’Brien to seek revenge on Jorgenson. When the men return to base, seeing Jorgenson ignites the fire in O’Brien again, so he wants to seek revenge with the only man who agrees to help him, Azar. Their plan was to scare Jorgenson one night when he was working alone. That night they wiggled ropes in the bushes to make it seem like the enemy was attacking, and they set off flares. However, Jorgenson finds out that it’s O’Brien and Azar and calls out to O’ Brien asking if they’re now even. Overall, O’Brien has gotten more stubborn throughout the war, he has more sticks to chew with people, he doesn’t let things go easily.
ReplyDeleteIn the chapter “The Ghost Soldiers,” O’Brien explains his two injuries while over in Vietnam. The first time O’Brien got shot in his side out by Tri Binh while Rat Kiley was the medic. The second time he’s wounded O’Brien got shot in the butt near the Song Tra Bong river when Bobby Jorgenson, a replacement medic for Rat Kiley while he was injured, was the medic. O’Brien had almost died from shock because Jorgenson had not helped fast enough, and later he also got gangrene from the wound due to the bad patch job. O’Brien was then sent to Headquarters Company, which made him feel relieved to be out of the danger for the most part, but occasionally missed being in the action with his platoon. A few weeks later, Alpha Company gets flown in so they could have a rest from fighting. They partied, ate dinner, partied more, and later that night told each other stories from when O’Brien was gone. O’Brien wanted to find Jorgenson to confront him about his suffrage from the bullet wound but couldn’t find him that night. O’Brien eventually found him after loading a supply drop and confronted him. Jorgenson took ownership for O’Brien going into shock and getting gangrene, but O’Brien would not accept his apology and drove off, leaving Jorgenson standing by himself on the helipad. O’Brien and Azar came up with a plan to scare Jorgenson while he was on night watch. They did so by jingling ammo cans filled with rifle cartridges to trigger the illumination flares. They also rigged up a white sandbag to a pulley system to make look like a ghost while they threw tear gas grenades by the bunker. After the night of scaring Jorgenson, O’Brien and Jorgenson called it even and no longer had any tensions between them. During the chapter, O’Brien says, "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world." O’Brien’s statement is just another way of saying that when you are scared for your life, your senses heighten and everything seems to stand out, unlike before. The chapter also points out the change that O’Brien has gone through since being drafted. “The Ghost Soldiers” reveals that O’Brien was once a timid, innocent, scared kid at the beginning, but is now a bold, outgoing, brave adult later in the war.
ReplyDeleteWhen the narrator of the story says “When you’re afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world,” he means that when you are in a position like this, suddenly you hear every little sound and notice any small movement. You become aware of everything around you because your brain has been told that anything could come upon you at that moment. O’Brien related to this quote during both of the times he was shot. The first time he was shot he was able to be helped by Rat Kiley. The second time though, he went into shock and the medic, Jorgenson, could not help him. After O’Brien realized he could have died from this, he wanted revenge on Jorgenson. O’Brien was then reassigned and at first, he was happy to be away from the heat of the battle but then he soon began to miss it. When Alpha Company returns, he realizes that he is no longer as close to the team. O’Brien then talks with Jorgenson and he still wants revenge even after Jorgenson’s apology. O’Brien then recruits Azar to follow up with the revenge and they sneak up on Jorgenson while he is on night duty and let off flares to scare him. This relates to O’Brien changing throughout the war. At first, he wanted to flee to Canada, but now, when O’Brien was taken to recover, he missed the action and scene of war.
ReplyDeleteThe quote “When you’re afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world,” talks about how our mind can play tricks on us. When frightened our senses are heightened which puts us on edge, detecting every little sound or movement around. As O’Brien describes his need for revenge on Jorgenson to the reader he explains why and how. He wants revenge on Jorgenson because while in the field O’Brien was shot and needed a medic for shock but Jorgenson froze up and did not help immediately almost killing O’Brien. The plan is to use the pitch black darkness of the night and make sounds to frighten Jorgenson. And slowly move closer and closer with them until they set of bags of flour to drop in front of him to mimic an invading soldier. O’Brien gets his chance for revenge when Alpha company returns to base. O’Brien is happy to see his company again but after awhile he begins to miss the front line more and more. This shows his change from wanting to flee from the war to wanting to continue fighting in it.
ReplyDeleteWhen Tim O'Brien says "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world," he means that when an individual is frightened, their mind slows down and focuses in on things they otherwise would have never noticed. When O'Brien was shot he focused in on a single blade of grass and a small pebble. Focusing on the blade of grass and pebble allowed Tim to be at rest momentarily, until the reality of being shot hit him and he began to go into shock.
ReplyDeleteO'Brien is shot twice during the war. The first time he was shot in the side near Tri Binh. Luckily, Rat Kiley was right there and easily patched up O'Brien. The second time Tim O'Brien was shot he was not as lucky. Rat Kiley had been wounded and sent out to Japan. Bobby Jorgenson was the replacement medic. Jorgenson was inexperienced and scared. While near the Song Tra Bong, O'Brien was shot in the butt. He went down and waited ten minutes for Jorgenson to treat him. During that ten minutes, Jorgenson just sat there in a frozen panic. By the time Jorgenson had acted, O'Brien had almost died of shock. To make things worse, Jorgenson messed up the patch job, which resulted in O'Brien getting an infection. After spending a month sitting on his stomach and flashing back to the time he was shot, O'Brien begins to want revenge. When Tim O'Brien had fully recovered, he was sent the battalion supply section where he would help load helicopters. Although he was happy about being in a safer area with easier work, O'Brien could not help but miss being out in the jungle with his old platoon. When the men from the Alpha Company return to the base, O'Brien feels left out. He feels as if Bobby Jorgenson has replaced him in the Alpha Company. To make matters worse for O'Brien, Jorgenson apologizes and makes O'Brien feel guilty. O'Brien then goes to Azar and makes a plan to get revenge on Jorgenson. They decided to scare Jorgenson while he is on night guard. The plan fails, and Jorgenson calls it even with O'Brien, to which O'Brien responds with wanting to kill Azar. Throughout the war, O'Brien changed in a few different ways. First, he learned how to cope with the atrocities of war. Second, he became slightly cold hearted, and began to hold grudges.
When Tim O'Brien says "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world," he means that when you are afraid enough, your brain forces you to focus on something small to distract you from the fear. The first time O'Brien is shot, Rat Kiley is the medic and takes great care of him, allowing for a speedy recovery. But the second time, he is shot in the butt, and the new medic, Bobby Jorgenson, is inexperienced and almost allows O'Brien to die from shock. He feels relieved to be away from battle, but misses it soon after. When Alpha Company comes by, he feels like an outsider, listening to the war stories instead of telling them. O'Brien confronts Bobby but Bobby apologizes, making O'Brien feel guilty for being mad. This guilt leads to more anger, so he and Azar plan to drop sandbags while Bobby is on the night shift to scare him, and they both call it even the day after. O'Brien changes a lot throughout the war, he becomes more cold and mean.
ReplyDeleteAs O'Brien said "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world," he means the person will slow down and notice things that he will never really notice. Tim notices the blade of grass and pebble when he is shot. Most of the men that were there were scared and the feared everything. They always had to pay attention and see things they never wanted to see.
ReplyDeleteO'Brien got shot twice during the war. The first time he was shot, Rat Kiley saved him and got him to a helicopter. O'Brien came back about a month later and found out Rat Kiley was injured and they sent out Bobby Jorgenson. The second time that O'Brien was shot, Jorgenson was late to getting to Tim and didn't treat him for shock. O'Brien knew he had to get Jorgenson back for that. O’Brien tried to get Mitchell Sanders to help him when the Alpha Company comes back but Mitchell says it’s a waste of his time because Jorgenson has changed and is a part of the Alpha Company. Tim gets Azar on board and they pull ropes a set off trip flares when he on night watch. They scare Jorgenson and make it seem like enemies are close. Jorgenson finds out Tim and Azar are messing with him. Jorgenson and O’Brien make up and say they are even. Going into the war O'Brien didn't want to go. he attempted to flee to Canada. By the end of the war he was a man of the war. He became the exact opposite he was before the war.
"When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before. I believe that this statement is explaining the sudden attention to detail that overcomes you when you are scared. In this story, O'Brien talks about the pebble or the blade of grass as the last thing you may see before you die. When Rat was relocated, O'Brien was shot in the rear and was poorly cared for by Jorgenson. The fear in Jorgenson made him hesitate and leave O'Brien there for over 10 minutes without help. Because O'Brien has now been shot twice, he's relocated back to base. His time at base is very lonely, and he misses being out in the "boonies" with his comrades. When they return, they tell stories to O'Brien. and he asks about Jorgenson. When they finally meet. O'Brien really doesn't accept his apology, instead he and Azar create a plan to scare Jorgenson using the idea of a ghost. O'Brien begins to harden throughout the war and the novel.
ReplyDeleteIn "The Ghost Soldiers", O'Brien says, "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world." Through this quote, he talks about how true fear causes you to see things that aren't really there, and it puts you on edge. After getting shot in their rear, he gets treated very shoddily by the frightened young medic, Bobby Jorgenson. He holds a grudge against Jorgenson for this, and this anger only grows when he is reassigned away from the battlefield. By the time he reunites with the men from his old group, he feels like he has been replaced. It's as if he no longer belongs there, and can't even manage to make amends with Jorgenson. This jealousy ultimately leads to his revenge plot with Azar. He decides that the only way he can settle the score with Jorgenson is by having him experience true fear. Through this story, we see just how much war has changed O'Brien. Before Vietnam, He never really considered himself to be someone who would go out of his way to instigate others. This revenge plot however, shows that his experiences with violence and fear have altered his ways, and shaped him into a different person.
ReplyDeleteWhen the author Tim O'Brien says “When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world," he means war brings thing that you've most likely never seen before. This was the most terrifying part was the mystery behind every corner. The soldier's brains were under constant stress that something bad could happen. Not knowing what was up ahead keep their minds at work. Noticing even the slightest movement or knowing where you to jump next in case of being shot at was mentally challenging. When O'Brien is shot in the butt, he first suffers from shock as he waits for the medic. Bobby Jorgenson, the medic, rushes to his aid and in the action freezes up in fear. A few minutes go by and he musters up the courage to fix O'Brien's wounds. O'Brien wakes up to later realize that he almost died due to shock and blood loss. He finds out later that his wound got infected and is released from his duty. This was Bobby Jorgenson's first time being attacked, which could have been why he froze up trying to heal O’brien. He was very mad to find out that Bobby Jorgenson was the reason that he got reassigned. When he back home healing he felt that he didn’t belong and that his place was in the army. O'Brien was mad and wanted to get his revenge on Jorgenson for putting him out of commission. While Jorgenson was of duty O'Brien and his friend Azar planned to scare him by making it seem like he was being attacked. While O'Brien was out the war changed Jorgenson and he didn’t get scared. This shows how war can bring out the other side of people. He saw that the fear in war changes a person bring out a whole new person.
ReplyDeleteThe quote "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world" represents that when you are vulnerable and afraid you notice the little things. Sometimes however, the little things you notice may be imagined. When someone is truly afraid, the things they fear are racing through their mind. Once it is in their mind they can look out into the world and transform the noises and shadows that they see into their imagined fears. When the soldiers would go on night watch, they heard the noises of the night that they had never heard before. When O'Brien had been shot he noticed things like a single blade of grass because he was truly afraid.
ReplyDeleteO'Brien had been injured twice throughout his time in the war. Once was in the side and Rat Kiley helped him right away. The second time O'Brien got hurt did not go over as well. When O'Brien was shot the second time, he sat in pain for almost ten minutes until Bobby Jorgenson came to patch him up. After O'Brien found out that even though Jorgenson patched him up he still could have died of shock, he was fuming. He could not wait for the time when he could get revenge on Bobby Jorgenson.
O'Brien's reaction to when he was reassigned away from the heat of battle was not as expected. One would expect the reaction to be relieved and ready for a break, but O'Brien was feeling as if he were missing out. When the men from the Alpha Company returned to the base, O'Brien felt like he had been replaced by Bobby Jorgenson. The men had befriended Bobby and made O'Brien feel excluded from the group since he had been reassigned and no longer was in the heat of the battle.
When O'Brien met with Jorgenson, he was a little shocked. Jorgenson apologized to O'Brien and he was unsure how to take it. Even though Jorgenson apologized, O'Brien still felt that he needed revenge for how Jorgenson had almost killed him. O'Brien recruited Azar for his revenge plan. Their plan was to scare Jorgenson while he was on night watch. They created pulley systems that moved sandbags and lit flares. Eventually, Jorgenson caught them in the act.
O'Brien had changed throughout the war because overtime he grew mean. At the beginning of the war he was kind and innocent, but as time progressed the war changed his personality and his behaviors to his mean ways.
ReplyDeleteWhen the narrator says “When you’re afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world" he may mean that when you experience true fear, your senses are heightened and you focus on every little thing. When O’Brien was shot in the war, he had a new medic Bobby J. Bobby was unsure and scared of what he was doing which caused O’Brien to suffer in shock. O’Brien wanted revenge for his suffering and if we look back at him before the war, he would have never acted like this. He became a true soldier during the war when he would’ve fled in the first place.
The quote "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world" means that when someone is vulnerable or close to death, they begin to notice the small things around them and subtle nuances of their environment. O'Brien's injury the first time he was shot went about as well as it could have in that scenario. Rat Kiley came and helped him with confidence and ease. However, the second time O'Brien was shot did not go as smoothly. His medic that time was the incompetent Bobby Jorgenson. Bobby was afraid of what he was doing and clearly not fit for his profession. O'Brien wants revenge on Jorgenson because of how he was near death for no reason other than his medic's incompetence. When Jorgenson, who is now a part of the Alpha Company, returns to the base, O'Brien tries to enlist his friends in his revenge plan. However, only Azar will join the plan, which is spooking Jorgenson by making him think that the enemy is near the base during his night watch. When the plan goes down, instead of being afraid, Jorgenson realizes that it is O'Brien. The two men say they are even now, and even though the two men have made up, it is clear that the war has made O'Brien mean.
ReplyDeleteIn "The Ghost Soldiers", the narrator says, "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world." My take on this is that when you have a major amount of fear (or any emotion, really), your view of reality shifts. Especially when on the verge of death, in this scenario, you take in your surroundings due to the emotional circumstances because you probably won't ever see these things again. This can be seen when O'Brien gets shot twice, the second time almost dying due to an unexperienced medic. He almost dies due to shock, and later he talks about how he remembered the details from Jorgenson's boots. Normally, people in battle wouldn't care enough to know the details on someone else's boots. Due to his fear of death, he took in the only thing he could see, which were the boots.
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