Poetry DP Update

Mandi Arcomano

 Artist Statement 

At the beginning of the first draft of my poem, I had a firm plan on exactly what kind of a regular poem I wanted, but as the time passed my poem became more and more its own bizarre and unique creature. I was mainly inspired by two different things, one directly related to this class and one not. My poem implies brutal government control, which was my inspiration and came from what I've learned about such dictators as Hitler and Stalin. However, the characters in my poem: revolutionaries, a beggar, and an assassin were inspired by something I read outside of school. Right before I began this poem, I finished reading Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables" a story that brings in the ideas of poverty and revolution very strongly. Those two aspects found themselves in my poem without me really thinking about it, and I took them and ran.

I had absolutely no form inspiration; my web design is very off the wall and was something that I came up with on my own. I had the idea when someone else in the class asked if they could do a haiku, and then being told "no" they asked if they could do multiple haiku, which they could. I'm pretty good at writing haiku, and I didn't know what to do otherwise, so I decided to tell my story in a series of haiku. Haikus are actually my favorite form of poem because of their simplicity, which I think comes across unique in the common conception that the more you have the better it is. I first decided that I wanted to start with a nature haiku, which is more traditional before I went into story haiku. I had written my first couple of haiku about the assassin when I started my other story lines, and I had a difficult time keeping track of which character was which. I started drawing lines between the story lines to keep them straight, it ended up being really aesthetically interesting so I decided to keep it. I also used a lot of metaphor in my poem; this is both a writing form that I enjoy and one that is commonly used in haiku. Metaphors are a way of saying something poetically while using very few words, which is important in this writing style. This usage both allowed me to get my story across in minimal syllables and to add a feeling of mystique to my writing, which helps to create the mood of uneasiness. 

I decided to make my poem into a diorama, the inspiration for this came from the tech director of a show that I’m currently doing. Before he builds the sets he makes these little foam board models of them with printout paper covers. I came up with this because I knew I needed a format that was conceivable for me to do (i.e. not drawing) but that would also have a visual aspect, as my poem doesn't have a particular way that you can read it from start to finish. My poem is also very character and setting run, and with a diorama I could show characters, setting and where things are in relation to each other. At first I tried to make a movie, but because of my afterschool activities I didn’t have time to make that happen, so I switched. Most simply, I chose to do a diorama because I knew it was something I could do, as I have a lot of ability to build small models and other such things with my hands.

My Poem! Link

Veteran's History Project

In this project we worked in groups of three to interview a Vietnam veteran for the Library of Congress. We each wrote ten questions to ask our veteran, then we met with them and filmed an interview. We also filled out an insane amount of forms for the Library of Congress. I worked with Jasper Graves and Natalie Erkkila to interview John Tait.

Project Reflection

1.    This interview affirmed my perspective that there is good and positivity that comes out of war just as much as there is negativity. My veteran talked very little about his more negative experiences, instead deciding to focus more on the positive, his opinions and his points of view. He talked a lot about the friendships that he made and how, after he left Vietnam, he was able to teach at the air force academy. These were all, obviously, very positive things for him and his life. In parts of the interview, he did touch on the physiologically scarring aspects of Vietnam, such as the horror of flying burn victims out of the field to a hospital. However, for the most part, Mr. Tait told us about the happier of his experiences, therefore giving more proof to my thesis that this is both positivity and negativity that comes out of war.

2.    The most interesting thing that I learned in my veteran interview was that there are people who have been to war and believe in the draft. Towards the end of the interview, I asked my veteran something about the draft, and to my great surprise, he claimed that he supported it. When I questioned him further, Mr. Tait state that the draft brought a level of diversity to the military that today we lack, that he learned a great deal from all of the people of different backgrounds. This was a fascinating point of view for me to hear, as I have always been rather anti-draft. In no way did what Mr. Tait said change my opinion of the validity of the draft, but it did open me up to the concept that there are, perhaps, positive aspects to it as well.

3.    As a historian, there would be many ways that I could use my interview for information. I could use it for straight facts about the Vietnam War, either about specific battles that my veteran took place in or about the flying of a helicopter of that era. However, the most valuable information in that interview would be the descriptions of flying the injured back to hospitals and Mr. Tait’s person opinions on war. My veterans talk about how, when flying someone who was wounded, he would fly up and down trying to find somewhere where there was no turbulence, so as to make the ride as easy as possible for the soldier,  would teach a lot to a historian. Perhaps the most useful piece of information for a historian that is in this interview is the opinions of Mr. Tait, for every person’s opinion is uniquely theirs, and reflects their experiences, in that way, the personal opinions of a veteran are a historical wealth that is unlike any straight fact.

4.    The most valuable part of this project, at least for me, was the preparation. In that very beginning of the project I had to do research so as to be able to ask informative and relative questions during the interview and I learned a lot from that preparation. While from my veteran I learned about his opinions on the war, from my research I learned a lot about the factual happenings of the Vietnam War, which taught me a lot more that what he did. I also learned a lot more immediately from looking at his biographical data sheet than from what I heard from Mr. Tait during the actual interview. So, all in all, the preparation for the project was, for me, the most valuable and informative part of the Vietnam War section of study.

(Video Will be Added at a Later Date)

Gulf of Tonkin Writing

Thesis Statement:

Even though the United States Government insisted for years that the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was a brutal and unprovoked attack on the U.S., there is now a great amount of evidence that shows that if it did happen, the incident was, in fact, retaliation for our own secret operations in Vietnam.

Paragraph 1: Conceded Argument

            After the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the United States went to great pains to prove to itself and the world that they were victims of the cruelty of the Vietnamese. This is clearly shown in the outright denial that the government professed to the incident being any fault of our own, in both the media and in congress. On August 7, 1964, Congress passed a resolution that allowed LBJ to increase his involvement in Vietnam, just a few days after the alleged Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Within the resolution there is a passage that, basically, absolves the United States of any blame for the cause of the incident. It states: “Whereas the United States is assisting the peoples of southeast Asia to protect their freedom and has no territorial, military or political ambitions in that area, but desires only that these peoples should be left in peace to work out their own destinies in their own way,” (Document 1). For an impressionable and uninformed mind on the subject, this statement gives the United States complete innocence in any provocation of the attack. However, to someone who is thinking slightly more cynically, and reading the silences, there is a definite propaganda. There is a clear lack of thoughts on the other side of the argument, the viewpoint that the United States might have done something to provoke the aggression. But, without that side and historical thinking skill that creates it, the quotation reads to all innocence and good intentions, which is why the two qualities above were believed for so many years. At the same time that Congress was passing LBJ’s resolution, members of the White House were out in the media newsrooms of the country, furiously sidestepping questions they could not answer and putting out a “story.” In one interview, Secretary of State Dean Rusk danced himself out of a question that asked why the Vietnamese would attacked unprovoked and went on to say that “the essential fact was that our vessels were being attacked on the high seas by these boats and we had to do something about it,” (Document 2). Similarly to the previous quotation from Congress, this quote shows a believable story on first look. However, just as the other one, when this is read more critically with all that is left unsaid noted, a very different song rings out true. With that point of view, the mind jumps to the question: “why WOULD the Vietnamese attack us unprovoked?” which then jumps to the idea that we did provoke them. Without the use of historical thinking skills, Dean Rusk’s answer remains honest sounding to the beholder. Only on the much propagandized surface of the issue can the United States be absolved of all responsibility within the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, and even there, there are glaring glitches in the story, a story that only becomes more bizarre as a historian gets farther in.

Paragraph 2: Emphasized Argument # 1

            In contrast to what the Government was saying, the United States did provoke the Gulf of Tonkin Incident by its own secret attacks on the region. This is shown with no room for doubt in a private conversation that President LBJ had with the Secretary of Treasury. Before the document that shows this conversation is even read, there are already several historical thinking skills that show its truthfulness. Perhaps the most convincing and prominent, the fact it is a private conversation, jumps our immediately, for why would someone lie in an instance like that? Another reason that this especial document shows the truth, is that LBJ states what, in the media, he has been trying so hard to hide: that “there have been some covert operations in [Vietnam] that we have been carrying on—blowing up bridges and things of that kind, roads and so on,” (Document 3). Generally, when any one person says something in private that contrasts what they have been saying in public, and the private conversation is much less complementary to themselves than the public version, honesty can be found in the private version. The above thought process uses the type of documentation to find the reality of history within the many lies that surrounds it. Later in the conversation, LBJ summarizes to himself and the Secretary of Treasury what he sees to be the story so far in the United States involvement in Vietnam. He, without any prompt, rather callously says: “What happened was we’ve been playing around up there and they came out, gave us a warning, and we knocked the hell out of ‘em,” (Document 3). Although to most people LBJ comes across as rather unlikeable in this statement, he sees this to be the right path and something to be proud of. From that assumption it is all the easier to decide that LBJ was telling the truth in this conversation, because of the information the second quote gives a person about who he is. The fact that he finds he is doing the right thing in Vietnam gives all the more reason to the assumption that he would not lie about his actions to a friend who does not have the power to take him out of office. It seems that LBJ would want to brag the truth of what he has been doing, something that he believes to be right and necessary, to a friend who would be impressed by it. All of this can be inferred because of historical knowledge of who LBJ was, some of which is given within the conversation. So as follows, after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, LBJ coerced his government into lying about how the U.S. provoked it, so as to save his job and image.

Paragraph 3: Emphasized Argument #2

            During the time of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, most of the controversy centered on why the incident happened, but perhaps a more important question is, did it happen at all? There is evidence in the form of cables that were sent by Captain Herrick of the U.S.S. Maddox concerning the alleged attack on said ship that point to the unlikelihood of the large torpedo ambush that was publicized. Quite similarly to the document to shows LBJ’s conversation, a great deal can be decided about the accuracy of this document by anyone using historical thinking skills, before even reading the cables. For one, the experience of the Captain, the lack of involvement he had in politics and that the purpose of these cables was one of private information, all point to the believability of anything said in the document. When Captain Herrick wrote that “all subsequent Maddox torpedo reports are doubtful in that it is suspected that sonar man was hearing ship’s own propeller beat,” two things are made clear (Document 7). The first is that the above mentioned truthfulness of the author and the type of document lead one to find that there was no large attack, but only one torpedo. Second, the plain way in which this is said, without any verbal flourishes or fancy wording, shows that there was no agenda;  that the Captain was simply writing the latest and truest information. In an earlier cable, Captain Herrick states that where were “no actual visual sightings [of enemy ships] by the Maddox,” (Document 7). This gives the reader a clear insight into the fact that there wasn’t any proof of an attack on the ship. Also, throughout the many cables that were sent regarding the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the Captain never comes out and says that there was defiantly an attack, this leaves a certain doubt. Reading between the lines and in the silences, it is made all the more plain that the one torpedo is all there is to the infamous Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Plainly, the obvious doubt of the Captain to the presence of repeated attacks shows clearly that the incident itself was so blown out of proportion that it was barely an incident.    

  

Truth of War Project: Project Pictures

Truth of War Project Reflection

Paragraph 1: Project Description

          The theme and learning point of this project was the truth of war for a soldier. The class read “Slaughterhouse 5” and “All is Quiet on the Western Front” in preparation for this project, these books helped the class members chose a point of view on the subject. I, however, did not end up reading either book, as I had joined the class late. Luckily, I have some background knowledge in war, so when the rest of the class was using the assigned books, I used books that I had previously read. After both books were read, we all created thesis statements that made our point of view clear, and edited them. Next, we began the process of writing the six paragraph rough draft of the essay, in which we explained our thesis completely. Meanwhile, I began to work on my project, a collage. I chose that form because my thesis shows two different truths of war, and in a collage you can show many things mashed up together. I generally worked on my project in class and my essay at home, and, fortunately, I finished both early.

Paragraph 2: Project

            The habit of heart and mind that I used most in the process of creating my project was perseverance. That one thing quite simply made my entire project possible. When working on an intensive writing project, such as this essay, I have a tendency to procrastinate. This tendency, combined with the common distraction that I end up feeling when I’ve been working on something for a large period of time, make it so I have to work at an essay for even longer than I would have originally had to. Because of this, perseverance is absolutely necessary for me to get anything done. For, when I’m having a hard time writing I have to absolutely force myself to get the essay and project done. This happened on the Sunday before the rough draft was due, where I found myself having to write the entire thing, with no breaks, in just a few hours, something that was both a difficult and tiresome task. All in all, when I force myself to finish an essay, I am, by definition, persevering though the difficulty of writing an essay.

Paragraph 3: Essay

          In the process of revising my essay I made several important and helpful changes, but two of these changes were head and shoulders above the rest in the issue of importance. The first of these was that in my first draft I made several statements that had no backing to them; they were things that I had simply decided to say, but that I had no evidence supporting them. Later on, during the editing of my essay I took all of my unsupported evidence and either found evidence to support it online, or if I couldn’t find anything to support it then I just cut it out. This action improved my essay a huge amount, for after I made that change, there is less conjecture and more fact for the reader. Another change that I made to my essay during the process of revision was to tie all of my main point’s right back to my thesis statement. This is something that was very beneficial to my readers, as it will connect the ideas for them and help them understand the big picture that I am making in my essay.

Paragraph 4: Extension

            If I had another week to improve upon my essay and project, I wouldn’t make any really big changes to either of them. I finished both early and am very happy with both of them. However, for my essay, if I had more time, I would have rewritten my last three paragraphs. I had to add a lot of things in and take a lot of things out, and the flow would have been better if I had been able to rewrite those paragraphs. There really isn’t a realistic change that I could make to my collage; the only thing that I don’t like is that some of the pictures are wavy in the way that they are glued on. I have no idea how I would go about changing this without completely redoing the entire collage. I suppose if I had an extra week, (and I lived in some magical world where you can reverse the power of glue,) I would redo it so there wouldn’t be any wavy and wrinkly paper. However, all in all, I am very happy with the end results of my project.

The Truth of War Essay

Love and Suffering, Anger and Pride

The average mind might look to war and see only the negativity; however, there is a positive aspect that lurks just below the surface. Of course, this aspect isn’t present in everyone, there are many, many people who see and experience only the suffering of war. The question of who is going to react positively and who is going to react negatively to war can sometimes be answered by knowledge of a person’s personality: how people react to different things. The suffering in war is often different than what the average person would think that it is, while most people see it as the simple straightforward pain of a gunshot wound, in actuality, there is much more psychological and emotional trauma than there is physical hurt. Similarly, there is a great difference between the actual pride that a soldier gets from experiences in war, and the commonly perceived pride. It might be assumed that a soldier would be proud of having killed for their country, and while that isn’t impossible, it is much more likely that a soldier be ashamed of that aspect and be solely proud of having protected their family, friends and country. When looking at the possible psychological trauma that can result from war, there is also the variable of whether any one person was drafted into war, or if it was their decision, for that can also change how a person acts, and therefore, how they are affected by battle. Some people come back from war with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and others come back with heightened clarity; it can be harmful to assume either state for a veteran. The truth of war, for a soldier, is both the quintessence of suffering and an experience offering the highest pride known to man.

 In the midst of a war it goes without saying that everyone experiences some level of suffering, but for some there is a heightened distress unique to battle or POW camp. The biographical book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, tells the story of Olympic runner turned soldier Louie Zamperini. When Louie is captured by the Japanese and forced into a POW camp the story takes a dark turn as descriptions of the psychological tortures that the camp Commander would force on the prisoners is shown: “He forced men to bow at pumpkins or trees for hours. He ordered a clergyman POW to stand all night saluting a flagpole, shouting the Japanese word for ‘salute,’ keirei; the experience left the man weeping and out of his mind,” (237). The simple fact that someone was driven insane shows both the horrible effect of war on the human psyche and just how much even every soldier was forced to bear. Although less common in this book, there were also descriptions of how “Virtually every day, [the guards] flew into rages that usually ended in Phil and Louie being bombarded with stones and lit cigarettes, spat upon, and poked with sticks,” (181). Both of these quotations show the suffering that some soldiers experience in the midst of war, suffering that can sometimes drive them to insanity. One of the most surprising things about these two examples is the contrived maliciousness of these tormenters, for it brings up the question: ‘did their own suffering in war turn these people into monsters, or were they born sadistic?’ This question is incredibly relevant to the suffering that a soldier experiences in war, because, as the question itself asks: is a malicious and vindictive person that way because of what they have experienced in war. For some, the suffering in war pales in comparison to the suffering that veterans experience long after the last shot has been fired.

Oftentimes, the effects of war on the human mind show themselves after the battle has ended, when the soldier is trying to rehabilitate at home. In Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, Louie struggles greatly with PTSD after he returns home, which leads to horrible actions and thoughts. At one point after Louie returns home he dreams that he was strangling his POW camp tormentor, when he wakes up, he discovers himself to be “straddling Cynthia’s chest, his hands locked around her neck. Through her closing throat, she was screaming. Louie was strangling his pregnant wife,” (376). This one quote shows how much Louie was affected by his experience in the war and how it affected him after the fact. That Louie dreamed about killing a man shows one thing, but, the fact that he was so enraged in his dream that he began to subconsciously kill his wife, truly proves the extent of damage that he received from his time in the war. There were, of course, also many ways that Louie changed after war that were less dramatic: “He noticed that [Louie] was manically germophobic, washing his hands over and over again…Louie had slipped into alcoholism, [and] had hatched a wild scheme to kill a man,” (365). The interesting thing about all of these harmful changes that Louie goes through is that there is a logical explanation for all of them that relate right back to his time in World War II: for example, Louie becomes an obsessive germaphobe because he was never clean in the war. Louie is also drinking to hide from nightmares of the horrible camp Commander, nicknamed ‘The Bird’, and is planning to kill for the same reason, all of which comes directly from his unique experience in the war. Everything that Louie goes through after he is supposedly ‘safe at home’ gives incredible and undeniable evidence towards the suffering that comes from war. Alternately, there are those who find comfort after a war in the thankful and happy, if sometimes oblivious, attitudes of the friends and family that they left behind.   

After fighting in a war, there are also those who come home to find peace of mind and a pride in their past, something that they achieve because of the satisfaction they feel from doing something beneficial for others. According to Dan Ziff of the PTSD Clinical Team for a Pittsburg veteran’s hospital, the soldiers who experience a generally positive reaction to their life in war after they return home are those with “a supportive family and an understanding employer.” Veterans with this love from their family and friends are more likely to remember and dwell upon the positive things that they have done and that have been done to them, instead of the negative. Those who can find comfort in the positivity instead of focusing on the many negative experiences are less likely to be destroyed by the horrors of their experience. This is evident because “The U.S. Army is planning to require that all 1.1 million of its soldiers take intensive training in positive psychology and emotional resiliency,” (Levine). To do this will be an expensive and large scale endeavor which would not be undertaken if there was not great value in it. Of course, our attempts to help veterans find positive thinking and to see good in what they have done, is why we have a holiday called Veteran’s Day. This mindset that soldiers ought to be celebrated by us, which is so helpful and important in the rehabilitation of a soldier, is articulated beautifully by newspaper writer Elmer Davis, who, in one of his articles states, “This nation will remain the land of the free, only so long as it is the home of the brave.” In this quotation, it is again very powerfully promoted that we need soldiers, we depend on them, and knowledge of this fact can help veterans accept their past and move on with pride in what they have done for their community. In this way, with love and support, a veteran can find the truth of pride in their experiences in war. While there are a fair amount of people who find pride in their duty in war after the fact, only a small group of people recognize peace of mind in war while they are in the midst of one.

Very few are those who spend their time in battle thinking about what they are doing for the rest of their country, but those who have this capability, find comfort, confidence and acceptance within themselves. This is something that was studied very recently for the first time, the results concluded that “the more stressful the combat situation, the more important [hopefulness, optimism, and ego resilience] became,” (Henion). Along the same line of thought, when any average person is sure of what they’re doing, sure that it’s the ‘right’ thing to do; there is a different essence about them, a human trait that can logically be assumed of soldiers. For any man or woman with such a mindset, there would also be a confidence and an easy ‘wherever the wind blows’ kind of attitude. This is something that would be incredibly unusual in war, but, would almost certainly decrease the amount of panic, fear, uncertainty, and pressure that a soldier feels on a daily basis in any war, this is clearly shown by the test results that are given in the above quotation. This would certainly be a difficult state of mind to achieve, as so many of the things that happen in war are trying to get people to lose all comfort and confidence. Yet, when it is possible for a soldier to remember why they are where they are and doing what they are doing, fear is surely replaced by reason and security. In The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien the character Sam pronounces a reflective thought on his and Frodo’s quest, while they are still in the middle of it: “But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on” (719). In this quote, Sam really makes the point that those who turn back from war, hardship and suffering aren’t remembered, that those who are taught, talked about, known by the world, and respected are those who have persevered. Sam also reiterates the point that bravery and pushing forward through adversity is both noble and important, a fact that soldiers who keep perspective and pride throughout their experiences in a war, know and understand. This is perhaps the most few and far between truth of war for a soldier, and yet one that surely many aspire to. While there is little we as a country can do to help soldiers find comfort in the midst of fighting, there is much we can do to let our heroic men and women know how much we value them.

There are many truths of war for a soldier, some prideful and others sorrowful; all changing the soldier for the rest of their existence. It is very clear that in this day and age we would be in a very different place without our soldiers protecting us and our country. Honestly, without them fighting in the Revolutionary War; we would not even have a nation to protect. We ought to do more to honor our veterans, for knowing how much we appreciate what they have gone through for us, can help to oppose Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, help soldiers to find pride, and see the good that has come out of their actions and hardships. As a country, we should also go to every extent to protect our soldiers in POW camps and on the field. There should also be a more universal effort to help our protectors to rehabilitate after they return home, for in some places there is still a stigma about soldiers reaching out for help and support. Every soldier’s experiences in war are different, depending on their personality, the war in which they are fighting, their station in the army, if they ever end up seeing any action, and, quite simply, their luck. All of these things come together to create the picture that a soldier sees when he or she looks at war. The ultimate truth of war for a soldier is that it is a multilayered and unique experience for every person; as it should be, for every warrior on a battlefield or in a POW camp is utterly individual and complex in their own right