"How to Tell A True War Story" Lesson Plans

Break into groups of four and do the following:
Reread pages 71 - 77 and with your group write in your reading journal all the references to listening, hearing, and sound. Just write the phrases inside the sentences that deal with listening, hearing, and sounds.

Vocabulary:
Napalm: http://vietnamawbb.weebly.com/napalm-agent-orange.html

U.S. troops used a substance known as napalm from about 1965 to 1972 in the Viet Nam War; napalm is a potent mixture of various chemicals. This mixture creates a jelly-like substance that, when ignited, adheres to surfaces, including human flesh and burns up to ten minutes. The effects of napalm on the human body are unbearably painful and almost always causes death among its victims. "Napalm is the most terrible pain you can ever imagine", said Kim Phuc, a survivor from a napalm bombing. "Water boils at 212 degrees fahrenheit. Napalm generates temperatures 1, 500 to 2, 200 degrees fahrenheit." Kim Phuc sustained third degree burns to portions of her body when she was nine years old. This moment was captured in a famous black and white photo which shows the nine year old Kim Phuc screaming, her clothes burned off by  napalm, running down a road with her  crying little brothers. Kim Phuc was one of the few survivors of a napalm bombing.  She is now a grown woman who has dedicated her life to peace activism.


Then  discuss with your group the following question:
Question: What do you think Mitch Sanders means when he says, "Hear that quiet, man?" "That quiet - just listen. That's your moral."

Question: What does O'Brien mean when he writes on page 71, "A true war story cannot be believed." Discuss with your group.

 THE THINGS THEY CARRIED:
"How to Tell a True War Story"
Pages 77 - 80

1.              Do you agree with Tim O’Brien that the abuse of the baby water buffalo was “essential, something brand-new and profound.”

2.              What does Mitchell Sanders mean when he refers to Viet Nam as the Garden of Evil, that every sin is fresh and original?

Vocabulary:

Essential: absolutely necessary; integral

Contradictory: a thing which is  the opposite of the other

Grotesque: that which is strange and unsettling; weird in a very uncomfortable way.

Drudgery: boring and tedious

Question: What does O'Brien mean when he writes on 78, "A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe."  Discuss with your group

With your group, reread pages 80 - 82 and write down all the imagery - visual and auditory (hearing) - on pages 80 - 82.

Read the following the quotation:
"Like a killer forest fire, like cancer under a microscope, any battle or bombing raid or artillery barrage has the aesthetic purity of absolute moral indifference - a powerful, implacable beauty - and a true war story will tell the truth about this, though the truth is ugly."
Question: What does O'Brien mean when he says "the aesthetic purity of absolute moral indifference?"
Question: Why will a war story that is true tell the truth about the beauty of moral indifference - even when the truth is ugly?  Why is this a paradox or ironic?

Question: Why, after a fire fight, does one feel the most alive?

Question: Why, in the midst of evil, does one want to be a good man. And why, after a fire fight, does one want decency and justice?

Question: Why does O'Brien say the story about Rat Kiley and the water buffalo is not a war story but a love story?  According to O'Brien, why didn't the lady understand?

The above will be used as talking points for class discussion.

Pages 82 - 83:

Vocabulary: 

go over vocabulary on pages 81 – 82: napalm, tracer rounds, gape, impassive, symmetries, barrage, aesthetic, implacable

Questions:

According to Tim O’Brien, when do you feel the most alive? Why, after participating in the savagery of war, does the soldier yearn for civility and justice? Find evidence in the text to support your argument.

Vocabulary: 

ambiguity: unclear, without clearly defined perimeters; has more than one possible explanation or meaning or interpretation.

Questions:

1. What does O’Brien mean when he writes, “In war, you lose your sense of the definite, hence, your sense of truth itself, and therefore it  safe to say that in a true war story nothing is ever absolutely true." 

2. Why does O'Brien become angry at the kindly older woman who tells him he needs to get over the story about Rat Kiley and the baby water buffalo? 

3. What does he mean when he says the story is not a war story but a love story? 

4. What is the morale of the story?