"Enemies" and "Friends"

Summary: I recently started reading The Things They Carried, written by Tim O'Brien. I am about half way through the book and there were two chapters that made an impact on me. The Chapters were called "Enemies" and "Friends." In both of the chapters the Author Tim O'Brien is talking about two men that were in his platoon. Their names were Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk. In the first chapter he tells us how they started off being enemies. Jensen and Strunk got in a fight over a missing jackknife and Jensen thinks that Stunk took it. They get in a very physical fight and Jensen breaks Strunk's nose and Stunk ends up having to get flown off to see a medic. When Strunk gets back he his all bandaged up. When Jensen sees that Strunk has returned he gets this nervous feeling that Strunk was going to want revenge. Jensen starts staying up all night and gripping his pistol tighter in fear that Strunk was going to retaliate. The fear gets to Jensen and he ends up going crazy. One day he just fires his automatic gun up in the air till the whole magazine is gone and then he takes his pistol and hits himself over the nose with it. As he was doing this in front of Strunk he asks him if they are even now. Strunk says yes and tells everyone else that Jensen is crazy and that he really did steal his jackknife. In the second chapter O'Brien tells us how Jensen and Strunk become friends. It starts off with them starting to trust each other. Jensen and Strunk start going on missions together and they dig their trenches together and take turns watching one anthers back. They become so close that they make this pact that if one of them gets hurt to the point they are in a wheel chair then the other man has to kill him. After they made this pact Strunk's lower leg gets blown off by a motor round. He is in complete shock and tries to walk on it as if it were ok. Strunk was loosing a lot of blood and was in and out of consciousness. Jensen was kneeling right next to him and every time Strunk would wake up he would ask Jensen not to kill him. Jensen replied every time that he would not kill him. Strunk is begging for Jensen not to kill him because all he can think about is their pact. Strunk is taken off in a helicopter and passes away in the air. When Jensen finds out he is relieved.

Response: The reason these chapters had an impact on me was because it is crazy to me how things were in Vietnam during the war. These chapters show how you could not trust anyone, not even the soldiers fighting with you. At first Jensen was so scared that Strunk was going to get him back for breaking his nose. I believe he went a little psycho when he smashed in his own nose but it showed the readers how difficult it was for all of them to be out there. It also shows that Jensen was just being paranoid because Strunk really did steal his jackknife. Normally these two men would never be friends outside this war but because they were forced to be in the same platoon they ended up being able to tolerate each other and then become friends. It was nice to see them have each others backs even though at first Jensen was scared of Shrunk retaliating. In my opinion they made the pact to kill one another because they were too afraid of the outcome, but when it came down to it I somehow knew they would not be able to go through with it. That is exactly what happened. Strunk was scared and did not want to die. Jensen was no longer there too kill his friend that was in pain but he was there to keep him company when he was dying. Although Strunk did not die in front of him, Jensen was there with him towards the end of his life to give him hope. Jensen felt a relief that Strunk died because if Strunk were to live then Jensen would have to confront him with knowing that he did not obey their pact. Everyone of those soldiers in this book and that went to Vietnam were such brave men and I am glad we had them fighting for our country but it is a terrible the things that they had to go through.

"Slang Does the Trick"

Summary: In the book They Say I Say by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein there is a section called "Ain't So/Is Not,"that talks about using informal language in your writing and when to use it. Your academic writing should flow easily and be relaxed but that does not mean you have to use scholarly words and phrases the whole time. It depends on what your writing about and who your audience is. You can should be able to use everyday conversation in your writing. You can also use slang words or combined languages but it is still recommended to use big words, long sentences and complex sentences. An informal language can help relate the target reader and you can connect with them on a personal level. They give an example of a title of a book that combines scholarly worse with slang words. The title of the book is Frequency of Formal Errors in Current College Writing or Ma and Pa Kettle Do Research and it was written by Andrea Lunford and Robert Connors. The title makes the reader understand and relate to the subject they are writing about. In conclusion know your audience and be a little more relaxed with your writing but just don't go too over the top.

Response: I completely agree with the authors. I believe that if it is appropriate to your writing you should always make it feel more like a conversation. If you use everyday phrases and words that you might use it might make you point come out more clear. I love when writers put a little slang or accent in their writing it makes me more interesting in what they are talking about. If i was the target reader, which is a college student in her twenties, it would be perfect to be a little informal. On the other hand if i was a middle aged college science professor that is looking for accurate facts and scholarly writing I would probably want to reframe from using slang or mixed languages. I would use informal writing on my personal essays or an essays that I wanted to make people laugh. Most of the essays I write today are in my english class and we share them with our piers and our professor. If I were to judge my classmates and my professor I would be safe to assume that it would be ok to be a little informal as long as my essay made sense and flowed with ease. I want people to understand the messages I'm trying to get across and sometimes slang does the trick.