Media and the Vietnam War

This weekend while visiting Cleveland, my parents and I decided to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. A large portion of the museum was dedicated to the forming of Rock and Roll. With the approval of the Vietnam War at an all time low, many artists were writing music as a form of protest. Media played a large role in the disapproval of the war. While the white house was relaying one story, the media was telling another. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien in some ways can be viewed as a commentary on this manipulation of a story. While O’Brien’s use of manipulation in The Things They Carried can be viewed as having a positive effect, one must look at the morality of spinning a story. While O’Brien labels his work as fiction, he tries his absolute hardest for it to come across as real. Does writing a story that you desperately want to sound real about things that didn’t happen during such a controversial war take away from the experience of those that maybe experienced a situation similar to O’Brien’s or does it validate their war experience by capturing it in a book that will be read many years beyond the end of the war? I think it all boils down to a specific person’s experience and the emotions that followed. No book is able to please everyone, and O’Brien’s stories provide a much needed warning to younger generations about war by providing an intimate view into the horrors soldiers must face and not just abstract facts and figures. However, one must ask him or herself, if it is okay to take other’s stories and make them your own? Is rewriting history going to foster peace or cause more issues? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.