Complaining = Change?

Swafford ended by saying, "some wars are unavoidable and need well be fought, but this doesn't erase warfare's waste. Sorry, we must say to the mothers whose sons will die horribly. This will never end. Sorry." At one point Swafford had me completely confused, but at the end of the memoir, he makes it clear about why he wrote it. He felt the need to complain about his experiences in the marines and what the marines stands for. Swafford wasn't the only marine that complained, they all complained http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCyzLHQ_fro, but Swafford continued to do so even after the war was over.

Maybe by him complaining things might change. He doesn't expect the wars to end, but he does hope complaining would change the experience of a marine. In "The Things They Carried," O'Brien had a different perspective about his experience. He prefers to metaphorically tell war stories. In fact he and many are actually sad and this is there way of complaining.

Is Swafford complaining because he had a bad experience? I think he's complaining because he didn't have any excitement. The ones that were spared, as himself, don't understand the reason that many died and they didn't.

In every war occurrence there is a complaint. In the movie, "Home Of The Brave" the characters are having a hard time adjusting to their lives. There is a change in activities, change in sleep, change in their lives. The families are having a hard time with the change as well. They complain about the way their loved ones return to them. Is the complaining going to cause change for the better or the worse? Is Swafford's complaining going to cause change, change in the structure of the what?

Truth

A normal day for many may consists of conversations. These conversations may consist of the truth or of lies. How can we tell when we are being lied to? We don't even think twice about some of what we are told. The reality is we may have been lied to. Tim O'Brien said, "In any war story, but especially a true one, it's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen." This is not only true for war stories but for our everyday encounters.

Every conversation we have may consist of a lie. People tell stories for entertainment, for no reason at all or even for excitement. Why would one decide to make up a random lie? A lie for entertainment or excitement. A good story told usually captures an audience. An audience that the storyteller can always tell a story to and feel satisfied. The rapper Tupac Shakur sang about Trading War Stories http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9tw8a3ZolE. Every story, whether truth or not has a beginning and an end.

As Swafford said in the memoir about the men whose lives were spared spread what they call "good news." Swafford decided to complain about his experience instead of telling a lie about good news.

War

What is war? There are several ways to describe what is war. War can be a war between countries, a conflict, being in a struggle or even war of words. When we here the word war, we think mainly of war between two or more countries.


Right now we are all experiencing a war. The war I am experiencing at this very moment is associated with this class. Even though I am computer, internet savvy, there are things that we are all ignorant of. My experiences as blogger has become the most difficult assignment I have been put up against. I have tried to hyperlink and I have been unsuccessful. My hyperlinks are important to what I have to say in my blogs because they demonstrate and give a better view of my points. What I can say is I am having a hard time. I spend hours upon hours trying to become more knowledgeable of blogging. The one thing is I am not a quitter and I will defeat my enemy.


Though blogging is an obstacle for me, it isn't the only strain I have. There is this war economic crisis that that country is currently up against. The existing home sales fell 2.2 percent August. There are several ideas being administered to "fix" the problem. We as a country is facing this together and the war is against the economy and the people. If that's only thing we had to be fixated upon, it would seem much simple. This is a struggle that is affecting the economy which affects the nation. http://money.aol.com/

Swafford's Memory

There is this question lying in my head. I'm thinking to myself, Swafford may not be telling the whole truth from is perspective, but these events whether truth or fact, they occurred. These men that go to war, pointless wars are faced with so many obstacles. They are faced with the separation from their families and decision making. Swafford says, "no matter what occurs I will never be the same, and that is the only thing that might last forever." This statement may apply to all marines and military officials.

The military is a life-changing experience. The challenges, the joy and fun, the traveling and the women are all things that can make you or break you. Swofford seems to want to become a stronger person for himself. He desires to succeed to become a hero, knowing that there will be obstacles along the way. Swofford has grown to realize that the military or in his case the marines is only a mirage to many unless you actually experience. He goes on illustrate that the men who fight in the wars come home and tell war stories but they don’t tell the whole truth. They don’t explain that there are more bad times than good times. Even when it seems as though they are having a good they are still hurting.

Memoir or Novel

We were introduced in the last class of whether the book we are reading is a memoir or a novel. We discussed this topic in class which led me to read the book more attentively. After class I decided to start over. As i began to read, I kept the question in my head, "is the book a memoir or a novel?"

Swofford said, "thus what follows is neither true nor false but what I know." A memoir is defined to be a record of events written by a person having intimate knowledge of them and based on personal observation. It is also defined as an account of one's personal life and experiences; autobiography. Even though Swafford goes on to say that he remembers these events, he demonstrates no chronological placement of the "facts". The fact that he is unable to keep these statements in chronological order shows that they may not have actually occurred.

Ike a Tragedy or Heartbreak

Yet another tragedy has hit the country. Which one do we consider to be worse? Is it 911, hurricane Katrina in 2005, or is it hurricane Ike or hurricane Hanna? These happenings were all unfortunate. They were unfortunate for the country. Some may think that these occurrences may only have an effect within its barriers. These mishaps did not only hurt a state, the country, but the whole world. There were visitors from different states and around the globe. Each time a tragedy occurs, the world is affected. We overcome these distractions. As described in "The Mercy Seat" we over them the "American way." As the hurricane travels through the regions, we will overcome it.

The death toll for Ike has risen to 30 in eight states. There were residents who ignored the evacuation orders and authorities were able to save nearly 2,000 residents. As Ike moved into the Midsection of the United States, the hurricane downgraded to a Tropical Depression. Orange, Bridge City and Galveston were hit hard

Tropical Storm Hanna killed more than 100 people when it swept through Haiti on Sept. 1. The storm continued up the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, causing floods and knocking out electricity. They had run out of food Sunday night. They left for Gustav and say they couldn't afford to leave for Ike or buy any more than $60 in food. Many of those who did make it to safety boarded buses without knowing where they were going. They did not know what might remain of their homes.

Blogging is new to me:

Blogging is new to me. I have created a blog before in my last semester writing course, but I did
not have to publish it for others to view. I figured, well it shouldn’t be that hard, but when I view other blogs posted, I appear to be a total amateur.

For the past three days I have been trying to access my blog account. That became another
task. I was redirected over and over to create a new account. Each time I used the same login
information, which was baffling to me. I am now able to access my account so I decided to write
about the ten commandments and it’s significance to the material, the “Mercy Seat,” but I have
a change of plans.

It took me three days to access my blog account that I created three days ago. Finding a topic to
write is not the issue, but putting it together for the public view may be the issue at hand. When
the professor first introduced the assignment that we must log on and blog, I thought to myself,
wow this should be fun. Do think I still feel that way? It may take me a little while to get used to
blogging. Most of all, I am hoping that the login issue is fixed.

I was unaware of the popularity of blogging. What is a blog? A free blog publishing tool from
Google for easily sharing your thoughts with the world. The first time it was introduced to me, I
thought that it was just another time-consuming activity for web surfers. It turns out, a blog can
be created as an introduction, as an informative source, a persuasive source or simply to posttexts, photos and videos. Not to forget that you can promote a business and anything of interest with a blog.

I found a bunch of sites which provides ideas on blogging. I was searching for a site for
individuals new to blogging and hundreds of link results were populated for my search. I am
very interested. I look forward to blogging this semester.