This week, we had a rare opportunity at school to bring in an incredibly well-respected (dare I say famous?) author. A lovely grant allowed us to invite Tim O'Brien (author of The Things They Carried, In the Lake of the Woods, Going After Cacciato, and many other highly praised works) to speak to our students. While O'Brien is an author I've read and enjoyed, he would not have been at the top of my "Gee, I'd Like to Meet This Person" list. However, he blew me, and everyone else, away with his easy speaking style, emotional vulnerability and amazing stories.
A Vietnam Vet, O'Brien has experienced the war stories he writes about firsthand. However, most of his writing is fictional. O'Brien spoke eloquently about the ways in which harsh truth can sometimes be best captured in fiction. He illustrated his points by reading a story from his book and than telling us why it was true even though it never actually happened. It was a fascinating concept and challenging for many to wrap their heads around, and it provoked many interesting conversations afterwards.
Speaking to my seniors the next day, I realized that their understanding of Vietnam is extremely limited. While so many of the soldiers were only a year or two older than the seniors are now when they were shipped to an exotic and dangerous place, it is not something these kids really think about. They also really cannot begin to understand that these young men left the US only to return to a country that was hostile towards them, treating them as if they were the transgressors rather than the victims. O'Brien said to the students, "You would have liked me before the war. I was a sweet kid. Really sweet. You wouldn't have wanted to know me when I came home."
When I was in college in the late seventies, the war was definitely a thought in my head. Though I started college in 1978 and the war had ended about 3 years earlier, it was still too close for comfort. When I took a playwriting class at Hampshire College, I wrote a play about women being drafted. I did not actually know anyone who went to Vietnam, but the thought that the government, my government, could require a person to leave their home and fight was terrifying to me. Now, as the mother of two strong, sturdy sons, I am grateful that they are not soldiers, but I am also enormously cognizant of the fact that there are mothers like me who have hugged their sons (and daughters) goodbye only to see them return in a flag-draped coffin.
September 11 made all of us even more patriotic (and more frightened) than we had been before. I know that, speaking for myself, I felt safer knowing that we had a willing group of soldiers to keep us protected and secure. The obvious tragedy is that the war(s) become disconnected from issues of security and, as often happens with war, the conflict takes on a life of its own.
In the title story of O'Brien's collection. "The Things They Carried," he lists all the burdens, literal and abstract, that the soldiers carry with them in the jungles of Vietnam. They carry the usual accoutrements of war, they carry the common memorabilia from home, but they also carry guilt, fear and the heavy burden of responsibility for each other's lives. By the end of the story, we, the reader, are sharing their burden by carrying their stories. Once you read a story, you can't unread it. Once you know a truth, you can't unknow it.
Telling stories allows us to share the burden that is an inherent part of being human. Somehow, our hearts expand when we carry each other's stories, and while we may feel heavier, we are also more united and even more ready to carry what we can.
No comments:
Post a Comment