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Joseph Ebron

Mrs. Field

LNG 405

10 November 2010

True War Story

Boom, boom, as one reads the text of a true war story, his heart beats emphatically. In

The Things They Carried, We Were Soldiers, “In Another Country”, “A New Kind of War”,

“Why Soldiers Won’t Talk”, and “A Weight Beyond Words”, each author uses a soldier’s

emotion and experiences to give the reader a belief in that story. A “true” war story sinks into the

heart of its reader and makes their stomach believe through chronicling the experiences of the

soldier while displaying the genuine presence of powerful emotion, the strong bonds shared by

soldiers, and the gruesome circumstances they face in their daily trials of war.

The usage of powerful emotion in a “true” war story gives the reader personal feelings

towards the story and each character, resulting in genuine belief in their experiences. In We Were

Soldiers, the unknown commodities of the war causes the rookie soldiers to develop fear, as seen

on their faces as they first left the secure helicopter for the treacherous battlefield which was to

be their home for an undisclosed period of time. The audience experiences a great deal of pity for

the soldiers and develops hopeful emotion towards their survival. In the article “A Weight

beyond words”, medic Tyrone Jordan experiences many emotional sights that an average person

couldn’t handle. As he carries a fallen hero in the battlefield, “Jordan's face is fixed with

intensity, his mouth wide open, yelling” (Leland). His outburst of emotion in such a critical time

gives off the notion that his job runs deep into his mind. His emotion shows the reader that this is

important to him and causes the reader to deeply care about the well-being of the fallen hero.
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This usage of emotion is not always apparent, as it is in the case of Hal Moore in We Were

Soldiers. His emotion is at a deeper level as he tells his young daughter about the harsh realities

of war. The audience can feel his hidden emotion internally, making them believe in a false

character’s true feeling. The emotional terrors of the battlefield are so immense that it causes

individuals to take their own life, as this is in the case of Norman Bowker in The Things They

Carried. The high level of despair from his experiences in war makes the reader feel the pain he

suffers and develop a belief in the story. War also affects the rest of a man’s life as in the case of

soldier in “In Another Country”. He expresses his great emotion externally as he is “crying, his

head up looking at nothing, carrying himself straight and soldierly, with tears on both his cheeks

and biting his lips…” (Hemingway 972). The weight of the war has really affected him and his

inability to conceal his emotion influences the reader. “So much hurt…” (O’Brien 164) that a

soldier feels, develops his emotion toward the war and sways the reader’s feelings in their favor.

This emotion is also apparent in the bonds that each soldier shares.

In a “true” war story, a bond between soldiers is displayed to illustrate a true relationship

between soldiers and how they get through their troubles together. “Army medic Tyrone Jordan

of Charlotte runs off the battlefield hunched under the weight of a wounded U.S. Marine he is

carrying on his back”(Leland). The bond between fellow companions on the battlefield is at so

high a level that fellow soldiers will do anything for each other. This shows the reader a genuine

relationship between two characters, increasing their belief in the story.

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Works Cited

Leland, Elizabeth. "A Weight Beyond Words." Charlotte Observer. 10 Oct. 2010. Web. 10 Nov.
2010. <http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/10/10/1751365/a-weight-beyond-
words.html>.

We Were Soldiers. Dir. Randall Wallace. Perf. Mel Gibson and Madeleine Stowe. Icon
Productions, 2002. DVD.

O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried: a Work of Fiction. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,
2009. Print.

Hemingway, Ernest. In Another Country. 1927. American Literature. Evanston: McDougal

Littell, 2010. 968-75. Print.

Hemingway, Ernest. A New Kind of War. 1937. American Literature. Evanston: McDougal
Littell, 2010. 1048-56. Print.
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Steinbeck, John. Why Soldiers Won’t Talk. 1943. American Literature. Evanston: McDougal
Littell, 2010. 1114-18. Print.