The grenade went off and the man fell on his back, his sandals blown off and he was dead. O’Brien always wondered if he never killed the young man would he be died, was that young man a good guy, did he have a family, and was it the right thing to do by killing him? To me every war story comes out to be the same. Everyone dying, families sad, and the other country is celebrating their victory. In the story “Falling Angels” they fight for their lives, watch others die, and return home.
By using strategy, the sniper figures out a way to fool the enemy and kills him. Saving his life by taking out another, felt so bad. With guilt, and loss of lust for the war, the sniper became curious of the identity he had killed. The climax of the whole story happens at the very end when the sniper finds out he killed his own brother. Though, the story’s ending is ironic due to the sniper recognizing that the enemy killed was his brother.
Key issue essay In 1968 on the 9th of March US soldiers from ‘c’ company entered hamlets in Quang Ngai on a search and destroy mission. The hamlets and My Lai were known as the Vietcong territory(Vietnamese army). US soldiers lost all control and killed 300-400 civilians including; men, women and children. 70 of these civilians were mown down with automatic fire once herded into a ditch. Over a year the US army covered up their massacre and 13 soldiers were charged with war crimes against humanity.
Soldiers saw their friends shot dead in the matter of seconds, or blown to pieces by heavy enemy artillery. Bob Slaughter of the 116th Infantry said about his good friend, “He started running, He was staggering he looked like he had a lot of baggage and he was he was just kind of lumbering across, and he was about 25 yards away from me and he got shot, and the bullet hit him and he went down in a runnel of water. And I watched the water turn red. And then he was screaming for a medic and one of our medics went over to help him and they shot the medic. And both of them were screaming out there and I thought to myself you know I wanted to go out there and help them, but I knew if I did I'd get shot.
There was a heated gun fight and three of the thieves ended up dead, but Tom got away with Mattie. He declared to the marshals from far away that if the marshals tried to rescue her he would kill her. The marshals had no choice but to withdraw. Tom took her to his hideout and was told to then stay there by his boss, Ned, while him and his thieves rode off to another hideout. He agreed and as soon as the thieves left Mattie attacked Tom and tried to run but Tom caught her.
In some cases, soldiers would shoot themselves so that they would not have to be there anymore. Self-inflicted wounds (or SIW) were a capital offence and if were to be detected, would be found guilty, and would face execution. A large scale of 3,894 men were pronounced guilty of SIW, but none of them were executed, instead were to serve periods of time in prison. Other troops committed suicide instead of carrying on in the trenches. They would usually hold their own guns to their heads and simply pull the trigger.
In May of 1970, a Kent State University anti-war protest turned deadly. The National Guardsman fired into groups of students; they killed four students and injured a dozens more. Students all across the country became infuriated and over the next couple of days, campuses all over the United States came to a complete standstill. In 1971, the My Lai massacre was committed by American soldiers. Such an atrocity rattled the very core of the American people.
Charley was climbing over dead bodies to get to the rebels. Charley was hiding behind his friends; unfortunately both of his friends get shot. Charley was standing in the middle of the hill jabbing people and screaming until he gets shot. Charley does survive from his wounds but dies later on during the book Narrative Structure: A major theme in Soldier's Heart is the horror of war, and how war changes a person. The author uses events that really happened in the Civil War to bring home the brutality of war--the building of a wall with dead bodies, young men shot in the stomach being left to die, horses being killed to feed starving men.
This affected George because he has to live knowing that he killed his best friend. Secondly, Georges only hope
When the religious soldier Kiowa is killed by mortar rounds and is sucked into “muck” that is created by human feces and the water of the flooded Song Tra Bong River, his body sinks down so far that he is hidden out of sight. Instead of reporting him as MIA, Lieutenant Cross is “determined to find his man, no matter what” (O’Brien 163), because dying in the muck field is not an honorable way to go. The military does not expect every dead body to be retrieved; however, as a leader, Lieutenant Cross is determined to leave no soldier behind. He keeps in mind that Kiowa is a devout Baptist and is not justified morally to do anything but return him home to America where he can rest peacefully. Also, while the platoon is searching through the muck to find the dead body, Lieutenant Cross thinks of a way to write a letter informing Kiowa’s father of the unfortunate news.