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Joseph Ebron

Mrs. Field

LNG 405

10 November 2010

The Elements of a True War Story

As readers feel the heavy vibrations of their heart, they began to truly understand the

feeling received from a true war story. The misconception of war stories being only physical is

quickly shunned as the content of a true war story makes the readers’ stomachs feel. 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 genuine belief in that story. On the other hand, the media only

shows care towards the political views of war and how it affects this country. The personal

experience through reading the text of a true war story connects each reader to the gut-wrenching

events a soldier endures firsthand. 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 a 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
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Weight beyond words”, medic Tyrone Jordan experiences many emotional sights that an average

person could not 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.

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. The title, Why Soldiers Won’t Talk, shows

that the constant emotional experiences of war affect some soldiers to the point that a

recollection of the battlefield tears the fabric of their mind. “So much hurt…” (O’Brien 164) that

a soldier feels develops his emotions toward the war and sways the reader’s feelings in favor of

their emotions. This deep emotion also appears apparent in the tight bonds that each soldier

shares.

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

between soldiers and demonstrate how they get through their troubles together. “Army medic
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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. In

“In Another Country”, bonds are formed by their meeting at a hospital showing that anything in

common between two soldiers can create a bond. In The Things They Carried, each soldier is

committed to find Kiowa’s body because of the bond they shared in knowing that he would do

the same for them. The bonds soldiers create, such as in We Were Soldiers, center from family to

respect. Major Crandall develops a bond with a young soldier after he experiences war for the

first time. This added respect was shared through a common experience. Also in We Were

Soldiers, Hal Moore shares a bond with a young man who has a family back home. This

connection between the two characters leads to a great relationship that every viewer cherishes.

A heartfelt relationship is also shown as the man with a new-born baby is brutally burnt and the

photographer is asked to carry the message to his wife. This helps the audience view his

transition form an onlooker, to a member of the war. These bonds create everlasting relationships

between all soldiers because of what they have experienced together and causes the viewer to

believe in the “true” bonds that were created. The connections between all soldiers are tied to the

heavy grind they face on a daily basis which adds to the real experience of a true war story.

The imagery used to describe the daily toil of a soldier’s life gives the reader a chance to

see out of a soldier’s eyes which makes the experience more real. The constant rollercoaster of

highs and lows on the battlefield is experienced as a soldier may believe “War is hell… mystery

and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and

longing and love” (O’Brien 76). This constant change in beliefs towards the war that a soldier is
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fighting in makes everyday life tougher. The appearance of a battered psychological state shows

the reader how the daily hardships of war may get to a soldier and how it affects his every action.

In the case of army medic Tyrone Jordan, the challenges of war propels him to carry out his duty

as he “treat[s] a captured enemy fighter wounded…hold[s] the hand of a 12-year-old Afghan girl

grazed in the face by a bullet… cuts through the pants of a Marine injured in the leg by a sniper

attack” (Leland). As the reader views through his eyes, he shows that his daily toil inspires him

to carry out his duty to the fullest. Though war is the toughest experience one can go through,

true strength shows through one’s actions when under much duress. The reader also experiences

the battlefield when the horrifying sounds of war are heard as “The rifles go tacrong, capong,

craang, tacrong, and then a machine gun opens up” (Hemingway 1050). The everyday hearing of

the sounds of war gives the soldier the challenge of enduring another psychological pain. As the

soldier does his everyday tasks, the reader experiences the sounds of war constantly repeating in

that soldier’s mind. The experience of relentless attack by the opposition affects all aspects of a

soldier as “the eardrums are tortured by blast and the eyes ache from the constant hammering”

(Steinbeck 1116). The pain viewed by the reader through the eyes of a soldier displays the

dispositions a soldier may bear on the battlefield any given day.

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Works Cited

Hemingway, Ernest. A New Kind of War. 1937. McDougal Litell Literature: American
Literature. Evanston: McDougal Littell, 2010. 1048-56. Print.

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

Literature. Evanston: McDougal Littell, 2010. 968-75. Print.

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>.

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

Steinbeck, John. Why Soldiers Won’t Talk. 1943. McDougal Litell Literature: American
Literature. Evanston: McDougal Littell, 2010. 1114-18. Print.

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