THINGS

THEY

CARRIED

A WORK OF FICTION BY

P EN G U I N B OOK S

Of these stories, five first appeared in Esquire: "The Things They Carried," "How to Tell a True War Story:' "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong," "The Ghost Soldiers," and "The Lives of the Dead." "Speaking of Courage" was first published in The Mas­sachusetts Review, then later, in a revised version, in Granta. "In the Field" was first published in Gentlemen's Quarterly. "Style:' "Spin," and "The Man I Killed" were first published, in different form, in The Quarterly. "The Things They Carried" appeared in The Best American Short Stories 1987. "Speaking ofCourage" and "The Ghost Soldiers" appeared in Prize Stories: The 0. Henry Awards (1978 and 1982). "On the Rainy River" first appeared in Playboy. The author wishes to thank the edi­tors of those publications and to express gratitude for support received from the National Endowment for the Arts.

This book is lovingly dedicated

This book is essentially different from any other that has been published concerning the "late war" or any of its incidents. Those who have had any such experience as the author will see its truthfulness at once, and to all other readers it is commended as a statement of actual things by one who experienced them to the fullest.

·John Ransom's Andersonville Diary

Tim O'Brien

First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross

Letters

This morning my platoon and I were finishing up a three-day patrol.Struggling over steep hills covered with hedgerows, trees, and generally impenetrable jungle, one of my men turned to me and pointed a hand, filled with cuts and scratches, at a rather distinguished-looking plant with soft red flowers waving gaily in the downpour (which had been going on ever since the patrol began) and said, "That is the first plant I have seen today which didn't have thorns on it."I immediately thought of you.

The plant, and the hill upon which it grew, was also representative of Vietnam.It is a country of thorns and cuts, of guns and marauding, of little hope and of great failure.Yet in the midst of it all, a beautiful thought, gesture, and even person can arise among it waving bravely at the death that pours down upon it.Some day this hill will be burned by napalm, and the red flower will crackle up and die among the thorns.So what was the use of it living and being a beauty among the beasts, if it must, in the end, die because of them, and with them?This is a question which is answered by Gertrude Stein's "A rose is a rose is a rose."You are what you are what you are.Whether you believe in God, fate, or the crumbling cookie, elements are so mixed in a being that make him what he is; his salvation from the thorns around him lies in the fact that he existed at all, in his very own personality.There once was a time when the Jewish idea of heaven and hell was the thoughts and opinions people had of you after you died.But what if the plant was on an isolated hill and was never seen by anyone?That is like the question of whether the falling tree makes a sound in the forest primeval when no one is there to hear it.It makes a sound, and the plant was beautiful and the thought was kind, and the person was humane, and distinguished and brave, not merely because other people recognized it as such, but because it is, and it is.

The flower will always live in the memory of a tired wet marine, and has thus achieved a sort of immortality.But even if we had never gone on that hill, it would still be a distinguished, soft, red, thornless flower growing among the cutting, scratching plants, and that in itself is its own reward.

Love,

Sandy

On 11 November 1966, less than three weeks after he wrote this letter to his great-aunt Mrs. Louis Adoue, Marine 2Lt. Marion Lee Kempner, from Galveston, Texas, was killed by a mine explosion near Tien Phu.After he disarmed one mine, another was tripped by one of his men.Although wounded by shrapnel, Lt. Kempner ordered the corpsman to take care of the other wounded man first.He died aboard a medevac en route to the hospital.He was 24 years old.(Dear America Letters Home from Vietnam p.131-133) (Amy) Back to text

Love Letters

Boy, I sure feel close to you.Since your last letter, I almost feel as if you are my sister.It's good to have someone to tell your troubles to.I can't tell them to my parents or Darlene because they worry too much, but I tell you truthfully I doubt if I'll come out of this alive.

In my original squad I'm the only one left unharmed.In my platoon there's only 13 of us.It seems every day another young guy 18 and 19 years old like myself is killed in action.Please help me, Mad.I don't know if I should stop writing my parents and Darlene or what.

I'm going on an operation next month where there is nothing but VC and VC sympathizers.The area is also very heavily mined.All of us are scared cause we know a lot of us won't make it.I would like to hear what you have to say about it, Madeline, before I make any decisions.

Oh, and one more favor.I'd like the truth now.Has Darlene been faithful to me?I know she's been dating guys, but does she still love me best?Thanks for understanding.See ya if it's God's will.I have to make it out of Vietnam though, cause I'm lucky.I hope.Ha ha.

Miss ya,

Love,

Ray

PFC Raymond C. Griffiths went to Vietnam just after Christmas in 1965 and was assigned to Company A, 1^st Battalion, 9^th Marines, 3^rd marine Division.He wrote this letter to Madeline Velasco, a friend form high school in San Francisco, California, in June 1966.He was killed a few weeks later, on the Fourth of July.He was 19 years old.(Dear America Letters Home from Vietnam p. 118-119) (Amy)Back to Text

The Letters

Dear Mom,

I am writing this in the event that I am killed during my remaining tour of duty in Vietnam.

First of all I want to say that I am here as a result of my own desire-I was offered the chance to go to 2^nd Marine Division when I was first assigned to the 4^th Marines, but turned it down.I am here because I have always wanted to be a Marine and because I always wanted to see combat.

I don't like being over here, but I am doing a job that must be done- I am fighting an inevitable enemy that must be fought-now or later.

I am fighting to protect and maintain what I believe in and what I want to live in-a democratic society.If I am killed while carrying out this mission, I want no one to cry or mourn for me.I want people to hold their heads high and be proud of me for the job I did.

There are some details I want taken care of.First of all, any money that you receive as a result of my death I want distributed in the following fashion.

If you are single, I want you and Sue to split it down the middle.But if you are married and your husband can support you, I want Sue and Lennie to get 75% of the money, and I want you to keep only 25%-I feel Sue and Lennie will need the money a lot more.

I also want to be buried in my Marine Corps uniform with all the decoration, medal, and badges I rate.I also want Rabbi Hirschberg to officiate, and I want to be buried in the same cemetery as Dad and Gramps, but I do not want to be buried in the plot next to Dad that I bought in mind of you.

That is about all, except I hope I never have to use this letter-

Rick

PFC Richard E. Marks, who grew up in New York City, served in Vietnam with Company C, 1^st Battalion, 3^rd Regiment, 3^rd Marine Division, which operated in 1 Corps.On 14 February 1966, two months after he wrote this letter, he was killed.He was 19 years old. (Dear America letters Home from Vietnam, p112-114) (Amy) Back to text

Chaucer (Amy)

And things fell out, as often in a war,

With varying chance for Trojan and for Greek;

At times the men of Troy paid dearly for

Their city, but at others nothing weak

Their enemies found them; upwards to the peak

Then down and under Fortune whirled them fast

Upon her wheel, until their anger passed. (Troilus and Criseyde I, 20)Back to text

Virginia Woolf

Back To Text

"Thanks"

I don't know what made the grass

sway seconds before the Viet Cong

raised his soundless rifle.

Some voice always followed,

telling me which foot

to put down first.

Thanks for deflecting the ricochet

against that anarchy of dusk.

I was back in San Francisco

wrapped up in a woman's wild colors,

causing some dark bird's love call

to be shattered by daylight

when my hands reached up

& pulled a branch away

from my face.Thanks

for the vague white flower

that pointed to the gleaming metal

reflecting how it is to be broken

like mists over the grass,

as we played some deadly

game for blind gods.

What made me spot the monarch

writhing on a single thread

tied to a farmer's gate,

holding the day together

like an unfingered guitar string,

is beyond me.Maybe the hills

grew weary & leaned a little in the heat.

Again, thanks for the dud

hand grenade tossed at my feet

outside Chu Lai.I'm still

falling through its silence.

I don't know why the intrepid

sun touched the bayonet,

but I know that something

stood among those lost trees

& moved only when I moved.

Yusef Komunyakaa Dien Cai Daup. 44-45 (Stacy)

Back to text

The Letters weighed 10-ounces

Almost immediately we discovered tracks, obviously too small to have been Occidentals.The scout read them as a mixture of VC and NVA.There was no way I could make any time and check every possible ambush, so I sent a double point as far ahead as practicable and kept everyone widely dispersed.We all expected to be hit any minute as fresh tracks were discovered.There was a sniper fire at the rear of the column, and this heightened the tension.But we reached the river without incident.It was now impassable.We were cut of from our base and requested a helicopter evacuation with priority for 30 cases of immersion foot, many of which had begun to bleed because of the constant water.We were all in sad shape now.I know that at one point, my feet about to crack open, my stomach knotted by hunger and diarrhea, my back feeling like a mirror made of nerves shattered in a million pieces by my flak-jacket, pack, and extra mortars, machine-gun ammo, my hands a mass of hamburger from thorn cuts, and my face a mass of welts from mosquitoes, I desired greatly to throw down everything, slump into the water of the paddy, and sob.I remember a captain, an aviator, who, observing a group of grunts toasting the infantry in a bar, said, "You damned infantry think you're the only people who exist."You're damned right we do.

Love,

David

1Lt Victor David Westphall 111, who arrived in Vietnam in October 1967, a platoon leader with Company B, 1^st Battalion, 4^th Regiment, 3^rd Marine Division, was killed on 22 May 1968 in an ambush at Con Thein.He was 28 years old.In his memory, his father built the Vietnam Veterans Peace and Brotherhood Chapel in Eagle Nest, New Mexico.Doug is his brother.(Dear America Letters Home from Vietnam p.84-85) (Amy) Back to Text

Dave Jensen

SOP

Trench Foot

Trench foot is caused by long-term cold-water exposure of the feet. Kind of like a frostnip injury. Eventually the foot loses sensation and circulation. Then infection sets in and toes are lost, maybe the whole foot, and perhaps gangrene develops. The exposed areas become swollen, blotchy/blue in color, and get paresthesias or tingling. Pain, sensitivity, and cold intolerance may last for years (a condition called chilblains). This is opposed to exposure to dry cold environments that lead to frostbite and hypothermia injuries. (Amy and Julie)

RTO

Kiowa

New Testament

Zodhiates, Spiros, ed.The Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible.New International Version.Chattanooga:AMG International, Inc., 1996.(Stacy)Back to Text

Legs or grunts

They were called grunts, and most of them, however grudgingly, were proud of the name.They were the infantrymen, the foot soldiers, of the war.They "humped the boonies" in their own special nightmare, hacking their way (.).In the guerilla war that was Vietnam there was no "front."Pitched battles were the exception."The way we move without contact," wrote Marine Lieutenant Don Jacques, "you begin to wonder if the VC are even out there.And all the time you know they are.The great frustration is that they don't come out and fight."So the grunts humped, sweeping the countryside on search-and-destroy operations, setting up ambushes, seeking to make contact with an elusive enemy, the Viet Cong-the VC, also called Victor, Charlie, Victor Charlie, Chuck, and Mr. Charles-and the NVA-the North Vietnamese Army.Even more pernicious than the enemy were the booby traps he set and the land mines he planted and the mortars and rockets with which he bombarded American positions.In a war that seemed without end, in engagements that seemed without strategic purpose, territory won one day was contested the next, and again the next month, and the next year.

A grunt's best friends were the medics who tended him, the firepower that supported him, the helicopters that rescued him.But he was tightest with other grunts.Theirs was a closeness forged by the dependency of their shared experience.For months on end, they lived in the bush, eating C-rations, bathing rarely, sleeping without comfort, filled with fears of the shadows in the night that only the down could dispel.They might return to base camp for a few days or a few weeks to "stand down"-take a breather from the bush.But the boonies was their home, and they spent the bulk of their tour in the thick of it, humping.(Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam p. 31-32) (Amy)

Back to text

Wall

hiding inside the black granite.

I said I wouldn't,

dammit: No tears.

I'm stone.I'm flesh

My clouded reflection eyes me

like a bird or prey, the profile of night

slanted against morning.I turn

this way-the stone lets me go.

I turn that way-I'm inside

the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

again, depending on the light

to make a difference.

I go down the 58,022 names,

half-expecting to find

my own in letters like smoke.

I touch the name Andrew Johnson;

I see the booby trap's white flash.

names shimmer on a woman's blouse

but when she walks away

the names stay on the wall.

Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's

wings cutting across my stare.

The sky.A plane in the sky.

A white vet's image floats

closer to me, then his pale eyes

look through mine.I'm a window.

He's lost his right arm

inside the stone.In the black mirror

a woman's trying to erase names:

No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

Yusef Komunyakaa "Dien Cai Dau"(Julia) Back to text

Military Rank

U.S. Army

Private first class

Specialist 4

Corporal

Specialist 5

Sergeant

Specialist 6

Staff sergeant

Specialist 7

Sergeant first class

Platoon sergeant

Master sergeant

First sergeant

Sergeant major

Command sergeant major

Warrant officer

Chief warrant officer 2

Chief warrant officer 3

Chief warrant officer 4

2d lieutenant

1^st lieutenant

Captain

Major

Lieutenant colonel

Colonel

Brigadier general

Major general

Lieutenant general

General

NOTES:

These ranks are as of 1968.

The Army ranks of specialist 8 and 9 are not listed. Few, if anyone,

held these ranks. (Stacy)

Rottman, Gordon L.Military Style Guidelines-Vietnam Era.Radix Press, 2002.Back to text

Machine Gunner

Summary. The machine gunner is responsible for the tactical employment of the 7.62mm medium machine gun, the 50 cal., and 40mm heavy machine-gun, and their support vehicle. Machine gunners provide direct fire in support of the rifle and LAR squads/platoons/companies and the infantry and LAR battalions. They are located in the weapons platoons of the rifle and LAR companies and the weapons company of the infantry battalion. Noncommissioned officers are assigned as mortar gunners, forward observers, fire direction plotters, and squad and section leaders. 

(1) GT score of 80 or higher.

(2) Complete the Machine gunner Course at the School of Infantry, MCB Camp Lejeune, NC, or MCB Camp Pendleton, CA, or upon completion of appropriate MOJT.

Duties. For a complete listing of duties and tasks, refer to MCO 1510.35, Individual Training Standards.

Related DOT Classification/DOT Code. Infantry Weapons Crewmember 378.684-026.

Related Military Skill

(1) Rifleman, 0311.

(2) Assault man, 0351.

Information Derived From MCO P1200.7V Part I and Part II.(Amy)Back to Text

PFC's 

Spec 4s 

Psychology

Rat Kiley

Dustoff

Medical evacuation by helicopter; also called medevac (Amy) back to text

Fragmentation

What the Thunder Said

Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina

These fragments I have shored against my ruins

Why then Ile fit you.Hieronymo's mad againe.

Datta, Dayadhvam.Damyata.

Shantihshantihshantih

1922

T.S. Eliot (Julia) Back to text

CS or tear gas grenades

Grenade compound of a chemical substance that is released into the atmosphere upon detonation causing pain and blurred vision in the eyes; a riot-control gas which burns the eyes and mucus membranes (Stacy) Back to Text

Separate-but-together

The Second Coming

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack of conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand:

The Second Coming!Hardly are those words out

When a vast image of Spritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere is sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

1921

W.B. Yeats(Julia)Back to text

Heavily Mined AOs

A unit's area of operation (Amy) Back to text

Bouncing Betties

A land mine that, when triggered, bounces waist-high and sprays shrapnel.(Amy)

Back to text

Lee Strunk

He is another soldier in the platoon, a minor character who dies in "Friends" when he steps on a mortar round.Strunk's only other significant appearance is his brief, tense trip into a Vietnamese tunnel.(Julie) Back to text

Elaborate Tunnel Complexes

"Tunnels"

Crawling down headfirst into the hole,

he kicks the air & disappears.

I feel like I'm down there

with him, moving ahead, pushed

by a river of darkness, feeling

blessed for each inch of the unknown.

Our tunnel rat is the smallest man

in the platoon, in an echo chamber

that makes his ears bleed

when he pulls the trigger.

He moves as if trying to outdo

blind fish easing toward imagined blue,

pulled by something greater than life's

ambitions.He can't think about

spiders& scorpions mending the air,

or care about bats upside down

like gods in the mole's blackness.

The damp smell goes deeper

than the stench of honey buckets.

A web of booby traps waits, ready

to spring into broken stars.

Forced onward by some need,

some urge, he knows the pulse

of mysteries & diversions

like thoughts trapped in the ground.

He questions each root.

Every cornered shadow has a life

to bargain with. Like an angle

pushed up against what hurts,

his globe-shaped helmet

follows the gold ring his flashlight

casts into the void.Through silver

lice, shit, maggots, & vapor of pestilence,

he goes, the good soldier,

on hands & knees,, tunneling past

death sacked into a blind corner,

loving the weight of the shotgun

that will someday dig his grave.

(Amy) back to text

Do rats carry rabies?

·Animals that carry rabies: Raccoons are the most common wild animals infected with rabies in the US. Skunks, foxes, bats, and coyotes are the other most frequently affected.

oBats are the most common animals responsible for the transmission of human rabies in the US, accounting for more than half of human cases since 1980, and 74% since 1990. Rabid bats have been reported in all states except Hawaii.

oCats are the most common domestic animals with rabies in the US. Dogs are the most common domestic rabid animals worldwide.

oAlmost any wild or domestic animal can potentially get rabies, but it is very rare in small rodents (rats, squirrels, chipmunks) and lagomorphs (rabbits and hares). Large rodents (beavers, woodchucks/groundhogs) have been found to have rabies in some areas of the US.

·Fish, reptiles, and birds are not known to carry the rabies virus.http://www.emedicine.com/aaem/byname/rabies.htm(Amy).back to text

She danced alone

Among School Children

A king old nun in a white hood replies;

The children learn to cipher and to sing,

To study reading-books and histories,

To cut and sew, be neat in everything

In the best modern way - the children's eyes

In momentary wonder stare upon

A sixty-year-old smiling public man.

2

I dream of a Ledaean body, bent

Above a sinking fire, a tale that she

Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event

That changed some childish day to tragedy -

Told, and it seemed that our tow nature blent

Into a sphere from youthful sympathy,

Or else, to alter Plato's parable,

Into the yolk and white of the one shell.

3

And thinking of that fit of grief or rage

I look upon one child or t'other there

And wonder if she stood so at that age -

For even daughters of the swan can share

Something of every paddler's heritage -

And had that colour upon cheek or hair,

And thereupon my heart is driven wild:

4

Her present image floats into the mind -

Did Quattrocentro finger fashion it

Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind

And took a mess of shadows for its meat?

And I though never of Ledaean kind

Had pretty plumage once - enough of that,

Better to smile on all that smile, and show

There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.

5

What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap

Honey of generation had betrayed,

And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape

As recollection or the drug decide,

Would think her son, did she but see that shape

With sixty or more winters on its head,

A compensation for the pang of his birth,

Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?

6

Plato thought nature but a spume that plays

Upon a ghostly paradigm of things,

Soldier Aristotle played the taws

Upon the bottom of a king of kings;

World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras

Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings

What a star sang and careless Muses heard:

Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.

7

Both nuns and mothers worship images,

But those the candles light are not as those

That animate a mother's reveries.

But keep a marble or a bronze repose.

And yet they too break hearts - O Presences

That passion, piety or affection knows,

And that all heavenly glory symbolize -

O self-born mockers of man's enterprise;

8

Labour is blossoming or dancing where

The body is not bruised to pleasure soul,

Nor beauty born out of its own despair,

Nor blear-eyed wisdom our out of midnight oil.

O chestnut-tree, great rooted blossomer,

Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

1927

W.B. Yeats(Julia) Back to Text

Oh Shit

The guy's dead

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people.So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a "bone-house" and reuse the grave.When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive.So they thought they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the "graveyard shift") to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be "saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer." (Amy) back to text

Mitchell Sanders

Sanders is one of the most likeable soldiers in the platoon, and the one who makes the greatest impression on the narrator.Sanders is kind, devoted to his fellow soldiers, and possesses a keen sense of justice.He makes his impression on O'Brien by serving as the platoon's chief storyteller and story critic.As such, Sanders is a kind of father figure in the book, guiding the narrator towards his own revelations about memory and writing.(Julie)Back to Text

VC Corpse

From Michael Herr's Dispatches (1977)

A Marine came up to Lengle and me and asked if we'd like to look at some pictures he's taken..There were hundreds of these albums in Vietnam, thousands, and they all seemed to contain the same pictures..The severed-head shot, the head often resting on the chest of the dead man or being held up by a smiling Marine, or a lot of heads, arranged in a row, with a burning cigarette in each of the mouths, the eyes open.a picture of a Marine holding an ear or maybe two ears or, as in the case of a guy I knew near Pleiku, a whole necklace made of ears, "love beads" as its owner called them; and the one we were looking at now, the dead Viet Cong girl with her pajamas stripped off and her legs raised stiffly in the air.(198-99) (Amy) Back to text

Smiling Buddha

climbed out & sat down in the street.

He crossed his legs,

& the other monks & nuns grew around him like petals.

He challenged the morning sun,

debating with the air

he leafed through-visions brought down to earth.

Could his eyes burn the devil out of men?

A breath of peppermint oil

soothed someone's cry.Beyond terror made flesh-

he burned like a bundle of black joss sticks.

A high wind that started in California

fanned flames, turned each blue page,

leaving only his heart intact.

Waves of saffron robes bowed to the gasoline can.

Yusef Komunyakaa Dien Cai Dau (Julie) Back to Text

Psy Ops leaflets

Printed material dropped over unfriendly territory, to encourage citizens to resist the VC and support South Vietnam's struggle for survival (Stacy) Back to Text

Bush hats

Cloth hats with floppy brims worn to keep the sun off of GI's faces; they were lightweight and comfortable (Stacy) Back to Text

Bolos

A long heavy single-edged knife of Philippine origin used to cut vegetation and as a weapon (Stacy) Back to Text

Green mermite cans

Tiger fatigues

Clothing designed for the brush, camouflaged to blend in with the jungle, and worn by US forces in Vietnam (Stacy) Back to Text

Black Flag insecticide

Fourth of July

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." (A)

"It is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." (A)

- "The Declaration of Independence." Clark, Christopher, ed.Who Built America?.Vol.

1.New York:Worth Publishers, 2000.Appendix A-A-3.(Stacy) Back to Text

Easter

Easter 1916

From counter or desk among grey

Eighteenth-century houses.

I have passed with a nod of the head

Or polite meaningless words,

Or have lingered awhile and said

Polite meaningless words,

And thought before I had done

Of a mocking tale or a gibe

To please a companion

Around the fire at the club,

Being certain that they and I

But lived where motley is worn:

All changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent

In ignorant good will,

Her nights in argument

Until her voice grew shrill.

What voice more sweet than hers

When, young and beautiful,

She rode to harriers?

This man had kept a school

And rode our winged horse;

This other his helper and friend

Was coming into his force;

He might have won fame in the end,

So sensitive his nature seemed,

So darling and sweet his thought.

This other man I had dreamed

A drunken, vainglorious lout.

He had done most bitter wrong

To some who are near my heart,

Yet I number him in the song;

He, too, has resigned his part

In the casual comedy;

He, too, has been changed in his turn,

Transformed utterly;

A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone

Through summer and winter seem

Enchanted to a stone

To trouble the living stream.

The horse that comes from the road,

The rider, the birds that range

From cloud to tumbling cloud,

Minute by minute they change;

A shadow of cloud on the stream

Changes minute by minutes;

A horse-hoof slides on the brim,

And a horse plashes within it;

The long-legged moor-hens dive,

And hens to moor-cocks call;

Minute by minute they live:

The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice

Can make a stone of the heart.

O when may it suffice?

That is Heaven's part, our part

To murmur name upon name,

As a mother names her child

When sleep at last has come

On limbs that had run wild.

What is it but nightfall?

No, no, not night but death;

Was it needless death after all?

For England may keep faith

For all that is done and said.

We know their dream; enough

To know they dreamed and are dead;

And what if excess of love

Bewildered them till they died?

I write it out I a verse -

MacDonagh and MacBride

And Connolly and Pearse

Now and in time to be,

Wherever green is worn,

Are change, changed utterly

A terrible beauty is born.

September 25, 1916

W.B. Yeats(Julia) Back to Text

Stillness that precedes rain

Ernest Hemingway.A Farewell to Arms.New York: Simon & Schuster, 1929. (Julia) Back to Text

Smart Indian

Tsen-pia Kado, "Horse-eating sun dance."It is indicated on the Set-tan calendar by the figure of a horse's heard above the medicine lodge.This dance was held on Elm Fork of Red River, and was so called because the buffalo had now become so scarce that the Kiowa, who had gone on their regular hunt the preceding winter, had found so few that they were obliged to kill and eat their ponies during the summer to save themselves from starving.This may be recorded as the date of disappearance of the buffalo from the Kiowa country.Thenceforth the appearance of even a single animal was a rare event. - Mooney

N. Scott Momaday.The Way to Rainy Mountain.Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1969: 67.(Julia) Back to Text

Norman Bowker

Henry Dobbins

You can't change what can't be changed

"I wouldn't ask too much of her," I ventured."You can't repeat the past."

"Can't repeat the past?" he cried incredulously."Why of course you can!" (116)

Fitzgerald, F. Scott.The Great Gatsby.New York:Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925. (Stacy) Back to Text

Freedom Birds

From Langston Hughes "Freedom Train"

I read in the papers about the

Freedom Train,

I heard on the radio about the

Freedom Train,

I seen folks talkin' about the

Freedom Train.

Lord, I been a-waitin' for the

Freedom Train!

(Amy) back to text

Ted Lavender

He is the first soldier to die in the book, and although he only appears for a brief instant, his ghost hangs over the rest of the text. Before his death, Lavender is young and constantly terrified, and takes tranquilizers as a way of dealing with the fear. His death seems almost inevitable from the start. (Julie) Back to Text