It's 1969 and I'm sitting in my sorority house safely watching television with a crowd of people. Several kids have to stand because there are so many in the room. The draft lottery is on TV, and I remember a feeling of disconnect, as if this really couldn't be happening in my lifetime, could it? Wars are just something that happened a long time ago and we have to learn about them in classes and books. Occasionally you'd hear a reaction when a certain birth date was read, but I mostly remember the silence as we all listened to the dates - one after another. There was talk of going to Canada, methods for getting medical excuses, joining National Guard units. This was really about as close as I came in my experience with the war in Vietnam.
Reading The Things They Carried was like seeing a whole new view of this war. Although it's made up of short stories about Tim's company of men, there are certain themes and characters who cross into all the stories. I loved it. It's so well written and I can see why many colleges have required students to read it. I wish I'd read it sooner. -June
1 comment:
Read this several years ago and highly recommend, but it took June to get it up on the blog.
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