Seminar Reflection
CJ Harrison
Reaction:
One opinion that was made is when jack said that war now is not as bad as it was cause the technology takes away from the psychological input or something like that. I thought that was really interesting because it's true. I was gonna share something like that because there is a new naval ship that doesn't use maned turrets like they used to, it is controlled by a chip that is planted in the airplanes on the ship to tell it that it's a friendly plane. But when an enemy plane comes in it shoots a rocket and guides it to the plane by a laser the follows the plane until it's destroyed. But the fact that Jack brought that subject up was incredible because there is now other way to say than basically that war has changed by technology allowing soldiers to kill an enemy without looking at them. And I thought it was pretty cool because I did bring up the guy who brought his partner back to base camp and got an award which he gave to the family and I thought those things are both great examples because the snipers had spotters, I mean they always have but now we don't have to use a sniper rifle to kill someone from a long distance, we could easily use a missile or use a remote controlled airplane with turrets and shoot them, I mean technology has changed so much it's like we barely have to fight and let the technology take care of it all. I guess just the whole thing was interesting because I learned that there are all kinds of ways to look at war and how it effects different people.
Detailed response:
In the seminar one question that we elaborated on was “Was Paul's death the best thing for him?” and everyone that got a turn to talk pretty much said yes because he had everything he wanted. All his friends were there having a great time with him and so on so forth. But in the end when his friend Kat died he just thought his life was over because there was nothing left for him. And that is kind of true in the sense of seeing all your friends die and your the only one left with no one to talk to. Also, he did kill his own team mate with his bare hands which was a really hard thing to go through. So I could definitely see how everyone pretty much agreed that it was a great decision but I think it really wasn't the best idea for him.
You see, he has a whole family back home who loves him and cherishes him which no one else could do. I mean in the book he said somewhere that it wasn't a good idea for him to go on leave. But also like jack was saying that it's really hard for people who come out of the war to be able to make more than 2 decisions which were life and death, Given a grocery store they would go crazy because there are so many options for them. I mean ya it would be really tough but what if Paul wouldn't have died and went home and adjusted to the environment. Got back to reality and had gotten a wife and lived an awesome life. I guess for some people, they think outside the box, but sometimes not far enough to say like, oh this and this, or, oh, that and that, which could make for a huge conversation given the rite time to say it. But for me overall I think Paul shouldn't have died because all his friends died because think of his future and getting more friends which wouldn't be the same but still better than dying.
Connections:
one thing that I could really connect to that we talked about was when jack had said that this guy didn't know what to do when he was given so many options when he went to a grocery store. I actually have and uncle or something close to that who came back from war and just had been totally out of control and almost killed someone because he was so used to the environment of war that his mind went crazy an just resorted to violence cause that's all he knew what to do. And it makes you wonder that, what would have happened if he actually became a more violent person. I mean, I'm pretty sure when he heard about war, he had to leave or he would think and remember what it was like in war and how he was told to kill someone and watching them fall painless because they had no feeling in their body after he shot them. Honestly, it really makes you scared because the only thing you would think that he wouldn't mad at was weather he wanted chicken or pork chop for dinner. So overall, I really thought of my uncle when jack said that quote and I quickly realized how true it is and how much it changes a person.
page 221 3rd paragraph. “Every gasp lays my heart bare” I think that this quote represents the truth of war because in war every breath yo take could be your last and the truth of war is that your last breath is the first breath of struggles and accomplishments. Cause you know when you take your last breath is when you have flashbacks of all the good times you had in your life and how you lived so free and happy. So I think overall this quote, for me, was the quote that represents the truth of war because it reminds you to always think your actions through and live every moment like it's your last.
Slaughter House Five
Seminar Reflection
CJ Harrison
One thing that got me to thinking was when Josh and Geoy were going back and forth about Billy Pilgrim's beautiful lie. I hardly heard what they were saying but it got me to think how they came to the conclusion when Geoy said “He cant change anything so therefore it is a beautiful lie.” this really got me because I was thinking that Billy really couldn't change anything because as everyone was saying that he was either too afraid to or that it would hurt him to change anything because he doesn't want to go through again and see what happened in the past and in the future. For some reason it just interested me because they came to the conclusion so quickly that I just wondered, is that true? I was going to ask that question but I couldn't find space to talk because everyone had an idea to get out and it just flew rite by me and it ended up in the next question. But I definitely think that what they were saying really was the beautiful lie of Billy Pilgrim.
I don't think this book is an anti war novel because he is describing something he went through other than the Tralfamadorians being there. But he is basically just trying to tell a story of when he was in the plane crash and in the hospital, as Hannah was saying “he was reading all these weird books and it was getting to the point were he was believing what he was reading.” I do agree with this because it's true, while he was in the hospital he was reading things and came to the conclusion where he would believe what it was telling him. Speaking of him believing things, when the Tralfamadorians had come into the book and after reading the book you start to think that they connect somehow to war because it says on page 83 2&3 paragraphs it kind of confuses me because it says the Tralfamadorians tell Billy to take his clothes off and then it said that a German had measured him. You start to think that the Tralfamadorians are actually the Germans because of this, and they take him back and forth into time that he sees when he was with the Germans and that the Tralfamadorians are always switching off between talking about them then switching to Germans. It seems a little confusing but going back to the hospital, I do not think that Billy Pilgrim was kidnapped by aliens because as I said he was reading books that caused him to believe what they were saying and that his brain wasn't completely functional at the time. So he was inhaling information and I believe that he was exhaling it in his sleep because he didn't actually move because if he would have been moving physically, then everyone on the plane would have realized that he just left out of no where. You would think it is really obvious because you think that he couldn't have moved at all during his travels because people would obviously realize that he was gone. But like at the wedding he had gone to the bathroom and when he had returned they were saying “where have you been all this time?” This really got me to thinking because he didn't just disappear the whole time but it was like he was dreaming but every second had counted in the real world so he was basically just 'living in the dream.'
Billy wanted to believe in the Tralfamadorians views in time and free will because he was traveling in time with them and he wanted to believe that he actually was going back in time and seeing what had happened. He also wanted to believe in free will because he had the power to basically say, forget it, I don't want to die, I want to see it and move on with out actually having it happen to me. It kinda ties into what Vonnegut's truth of war is, because he gives a lot of detail about what he went through but added a lot of humor to it like Deanna was saying. It was kind of a source to lighten the load of him talking about a rough experience he had gone through. It also says in the book that Billy couldn't change anything and part of the reason he couldn't was because he was scared and didn't want to know what had happened to him before and after the thing that he had changed. I mean I can see how Billy could relate to us in some ways because I know that he gets in a plane crash and then starts going back and forth in time but in reality his mental health has actually caused him to be so much different than humans because for how he goes through things. I mean, if humans have a struggle, then they either get over it or talk to the other person about it but Billy tends to go through it with writing and making things of it, unlike what humans would do. So overall I would say that Billy is way different than us humans because of how he reacts to his surroundings.
One thing that was said in the seminar that I could really relate to is definitely when Deanna was talking about how Vonnegut used a sense of humor in his book to kind of lighten himself from talking about the subject because it was hard for him. I could relate to this because I hear people saying like, “oh my parents are so awesome and I have a great family” or, “oh I'm glad my parents aren't divorced.” This actually really upsets me because I have to deal with people feeling bad that my parents are divorced and that they are lucky there's aren't. I've also found myself making jokes about it because it takes a huge wait off of me and it makes people laugh but when people ask it's a really difficult subject to talk about so that's kind of what Vonnegut is doing because he accumulates humor into his time of distress kind of like what I do. But his is more serious of a matter.
I would happen to believe that AQotWF can connect in some parts of SH5 because in both books it talks about war and what happened in war but you can also see a distinction that both of them have that many people don't see. You can tell by all the violence that happens like Lazzoro killing a dog in chapter 9 and Paul killing his own comrade in one of the chapters. I guess both books have different times when they share a similar sequence as I just explained. But also creating a totally different story line for instance, SH5, they get bombed, AQotWF people are getting bombed and both characters survive. I could go on for a while giving you what both of them have in common by what happens in each book but all I have to say is that their both similar because both characters are kind of mentally unstable and both have struggles throughout the book.
Veterans History Project
in our Veterans history project we registered with the Veterans History Project website and also made interview questions hat we could ask our veteran for his interview. we then met up with our veteran at our local library and video taped the whole interview and filled out our own video log for the questions we came up with. we then sent a copie of the video to the Library of Congress and the veteran along with a thank you letter from each of our group members. we also sent our registration to he Library of Congress along with a few detailed papers.
The Truth of War
For my project I had made a video about the positive and negative consequences for a soldier in the military. The reason I have done a video is because we have done a lot of studying of WWI and WWII along with comparing the different strategies that were used in each war. That gave me the idea of what the Truth of War for a soldier was because I was able to pull quotes out of the book we read and use them as a reference as to how that related to what a soldier went through in war. Overall, I had learned about WWI and WWII and read books about things that went on in each war and decided to make a video to represent some of the techniques they used.
The habit of heart and mind that I feel like I used best is perseverance. I think this because I had lost y video the day before it was due and I asked for an extension. Over the following weekend I had gone and redid my whole video and made it as refined as I could. I also had trouble finding out how to convert my video into a format that would play on my teacher’s computer. I then realized that I could burn it to a dis and made sure that it would work which it did while turning it in on time. Overall, I used perseverance during this project because I never gave up and made a beautiful video that was refined and as polished as I could make it.
