Home Field

Fourth and two completions to go. Zach, Ryan, and Kris need a touchdown here from forty yards out. They can punt it off, but that’s not really an option in their games.

“Zach, I can get it on the post,” Kris says with absolute confidence.

“Ok,” Zach replies, already knowing that, we’re screwed anyway.

The three of them line up, Kris to the left, Zach as quarterback, and Ryan to the right.

“Hike.”

While Ryan runs a short pattern, Kris heads deep for it all. Zach surveys the field, and in a desperate attempt wails the football for the endzone. It propels through the air, first passing by Devon’s launching body, then through the hands of the five foot ten Dan, and into the diving palms of Kris who claims proudly upon falling:

“I got it! I caught the ball!”

The Things They Carried passage

It's now 1990. I'm forty-three years old, which would've seemed impossible to a fourth grader, and yet when I look at photographs of myself as I was in 1956, I realize that in the important ways I haven't changed at all. I was Timmy then; now I'm Tim. But the essence remains the same. I'm not fooled by the baggy pants or the crew cut or the happy smile—I know my own eyes—and there is no doubt that the Timmy smiling at the camera is the Tim I am now. Inside the body, or beyond the body, there is something absolute and unchanging. The human life is all one thing, like a blade tracing loops on ice: a little kid, a twenty-three-year-old infantry sergeant, a middle-aged writer knowing guilt and sorrow. (236)


In this passage, Tim O’Brien states how the essence of an individual remains the same despite all the different stages he/she experiences in a lifetime. He describes how the Timmy he was in the past still lives in the Tim he is known as today. O’Brien acknowledges his own passing phases, “a little kid, a twenty-three-year-old infantry sergeant, a middle-aged writer knowing guilt and sorrow.” While the appearances, actions, and beliefs of O’Brien differ at these points in his life, he recognizes how all of them have an inner being that has always been present.

I agree with O’Brien on how people have an unchanging essence. There are many examples in the story to challenge this belief, such as the transformation of Marry Anne from the chapter called, “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” and Rat Kiley’s change from a brave medic to an overwhelmed soldier who has had enough. However, there are also examples that defend O’Brien’s position, like the love Jimmy Cross has for a girl named Martha. Cross loved her since before the war, and even after suffering from the horrors of Vietnam and Martha’s rejection for him, that love for Martha never died. But the problem with using any of these examples is the fact that O’Brien has called The Things They Carried a work of fiction, therefore the “happening-truth” in these examples may or may not have actually occurred. However, the variety of stages in my own life can serve as an example as to why O’Brien’s conviction is indeed true.

I have gone from a giddy child to a silent teen to a nonstop athlete to a faceless poet. Like anyone who has ever lived, there have been times of good and bad. I look different, I speak differently, and I no longer believe in many of the different things I used to, yet I am the same person. My memories are a web of who I was, with its intricate designs coding my existence. That web is still weaving a new pattern, even right now as I type these very words to send out for whoever wishes to see. And while the paths of silk may be completely different in length and shape and direction, in the end, it is still all the same web. As a little kid, I love to draw. As a young teenager with not much to do, I play videogames. As an obsessed athlete, I play whatever sport comes my way. As a seeking poet, I look out at the sleet and see a blurry clarity in its falling ambition. While all these identities are of the past and present, and are so different, they are all one in the essence of who I am and who I’ve always been.

“Inside the body, or beyond the body, there is something absolute and unchanging.” This spirit, soul, or whatever you want to call it, is something people grow and thrive off of. It is a bud of who an individual is and who that individual will always be. Physically and mentally everyone changes, willingly or not, but that inner person in everyone is ever present. If this is not so, then why are there memories? If people could completely change, then they should be able to eliminate their past entirely. But this is impossible because even if one managed to erase his/her identity with the aid of some outside influence, there are still other people in the lives of that individual who can recall their recollection of him/her. As long as there are people to remember who a person was, then the essence of that individual is infinite.

“Why I Write” By Ishmael Beah

I write because when I hear people glorifying war, I know that they don’t know the truth. When I first came to America in 1998, I lived in New York City. At high school, my friends asked me about Sierra Leone and the war. They asked me if I actually, “saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?” “Yes, all the time,” I answered. But what really makes me feel that I need to write is their response, “Cool”. By writing, I hope that I can change those particular and naive perceptions.

I grew up in a village called Mogbwemo in Sierra Leone, Africa. Before the war, I had a very simple and remarkable childhood. I was very close to my family and had the opportunity then to just be a child. My friends and I enjoyed hip hop because the artists often times looked like us, and we were in total awe of how they could speak English so well and so quickly, while staying in beat with the music. I was very happy and innocent during these young years, but that quickly changed.
The war came to my home and destroyed villages and devastated the trust people had for one another, especially of young children. At twelve years old, my entire family was killed. Mothers ran with their shot babies on their backs without even knowing it because they were running from the rebels. Fathers held their dead sons in their arms. Men, women, and children were mercilessly murdered by the RUF and army alike. The RUF stands for Revolutionary United Front. They are a group in uprising against the government who claim they are obtaining freedom for the people, but really they just want power and are willing to go to whatever extremes are necessary to obtain that power. While the army is fighting against the RUF at this time, they too recruited child soldiers. At twelve years old, with no family or home, I was recruited as a child soldier.

I knew that I needed a home, a family, and a means to stop having to run. The army gave me a false sense of all of these things. After annihilating everything I had ever known to love including the very landscape of all my childhood memories, the army was able to easily manipulate me, along with all the other children they had recruited. They used our hate to fuel us. They brutally murdered people in front of us to desensitize us. They caused us to lose our humanity and innocence as children. Over and over again, we would watch Rambo movies; take drugs like marijuana, brown brown, and heroine in order to remove us from the very things that make us human. In a weird way, they became my surrogate family. The commanders were seen as our elders and the friends I made there were like my brothers. We were trained to ruthlessly pillage villages, burn homes, and kill as many people as we could without a second thought. This became my reality until I was taken for rehabilitation.

With utter selflessness and perseverance, the staff at the rehabilitation center was able to bring back the lost humanity in me. At first, I was so angry that I was there. The other boys and I would fight and stab the staff at the center, but they never gave up on us. Instead, they’d continue to use the phrase, “It’s not your fault.” It is thanks to them that I am alive and living the life I have now.

I write because I need to tell the world that the recruitment of child soldiers is absolutely wrong, no matter what side. Awareness is the message I need to send. There are currently twenty countries where children are being recruited as soldiers. I hope that my story can show the severity of this situation and all the devastation, disaster, and loss these children are victims of. I write because I need to tell the truth to what war really is. The common misconception of how war is romantic, glorious, and admirable for its violence needs to be shattered. Many people believe that a part of healing is to forget. I write because I will never be able to forget everything that has happened to me. Instead, I have come to learn how to live with these memories and how to transform them to help me appreciate my life. I hope that through my writing, others can too, learn to forgive because that is the only way to move forward.

Memoir Quote Blog

“Through our sunless lanes creeps Poverty with her hungry eyes, and Sin with his sodden face follows close behind her. Misery wakes us in the morning and Shame sits with us at night.” Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde’s quote relates to Ismael Beah’s A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier for its powerful message emphasized by its anguished tone. Poverty, sin, misery, and shame are all key themes Beah encounters on his journey to survive. Everyday is a constant struggle, and in that struggle lays fear as well as a hope for a better day.

A direct relationship between Beah’s memoir and Wilde’s quote is the use of personification. Throughout the hardships described in A Long Way Gone, Beah often personifies nature, similar to the way Wilde personifies these depressing nouns. One of many examples is found on page 80, “Some nights the sky wept stars that quickly floated and disappeared into the darkness before our wishes could meet them.” Again, the solemn tone prevails in this quote. The night weeps, and the boys’ wishes are unheard, very much like the first four words of Wilde’s quote reading, “Through our sunless lanes.” Both of these quotes depict the hopelessness and sorrow of the scene they are describing.

The diction of poverty, sin, misery, and shame are very closely related to the themes present throughout A Long Way Gone. The poverty of the Sierra Leone has been one of the many factors of this civil war. As in Wilde’s quote, “[…] creeps Poverty with her hungry eyes”, this can be seen as the boys’ starvation from lack of basic foods as well as the power hungry RUF and corrupt government that has led to these horrific attacks. The boys are stripped of their wealth in innocence and pride as children – they have become poor in this sense. The sins and miseries of everyday since they were separated from their families are inescapable. The sins of the RUF, the government, and even these young brainwashed boys mount up because of the horrible conditions in this colony of Africa. Sin has a sodden face because it is saturated with disaster and unforeseen guilt. The misery of the lives of these boys ranging from the torture of not knowing what has happened to their families, to, as later described in the memoirs, the misery of living as a soldier with only drugs, lies, and killing to guide them. The presence of shame sits with them at night because of the later acknowledgement for what they have done, and how Sierra Leone as a whole is in shame for how this colony’s own people are slaughtering one another. It is the shame Beah later feels that keeps him human, that reminds him of who he really is and how he can change for the better.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

The line “Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living,” (113) is a very powerful sentence written by Oskar’s grandfather. It provides great insight into how he feels and what he thinks. This line shows how Thomas runs from who he is, or rather who he could have been.

When Thomas tries to leave his life behind to start a new one, he finds himself unable to verbally speak with anyone. From his isolation, frustration, and helplessness, Oskar’s grandfather becomes weak in spirit and will. When Anna died bearing his to be first child, Thomas was devastated. He could not look at any other woman without constantly thinking of Anna. Still on page 113, he even says, “I’m thinking of Anna, I would give everything never to think about her again […].” This adds to the strain he feels. Ever since she died, Thomas has run from his identity. He could have been a father to Oskar’s dad, he could have stayed a loyal husband to Oskar’s grandmother, he could have been a supporting father-in-law to Oskar’s mom, and he could have been a loving grandfather to Oskar, but instead he consciously chose to escape all of these lives. And as a result, he finds himself flooded by more emotions of loss. He knows that he is not the same person he would have been had he stayed with Oskar’s grandmother. When he says he can hear his bones straining from all the weight of the lives he is not living, he knows that all the responsibilities and problems are finally catching up with him. That old saying when a person has, “A weight on their shoulders,” seems to be what Thomas is feeling, but to an extreme.

Foer meant for this line to emphasize on how Thomas struggles with who he is and who he could have been. In one portion of the story, found on page 273, Thomas is reading the labels of loved ones lost to the attack on the Twin Towers. While this takes place later on in the novel, after Thomas writes, “Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living,” perhaps Foer wants the audience to recognize the tie between this line and that scene. Connecting these two parts creates a realization of how Thomas may currently feel. Thomas, after reading those labels, may now feel guilty for not living his life the way he wishes to. Now, he may feel the strain of all those who perished in the Twin Towers because he is not living his life while he is alive. All those who died in this attack lost their chances to fix their mistakes and continue being the people they need to be for themselves and their loved ones. Knowing this, Foer may want to draw a link between those who died and Thomas who is not dead, but yet cannot lead a life he is privileged to have.