living history

Living History

By Ryan Goodall

Sir look at your email i sent you in canvas it was the only way to get this to work.  

Research Draft

Research Draft

                This research draft paper is about combining my two theories on story telling history and military.  What my paper is about is how soldiers have chosen different ways to tell their stories.  I picked three wars for my research they are World War One, Vietnam, and War on Terror. The reason behind the three is that even with as dark as war is soldiers see the need to tell their story. After WW1 soldiers would not wright books or really even talk about it due to what they seen. There were some that would come forth and talk about it unfourtanly today almost all of the last WW1 soldiers are no longer with us. With Vietnam soldiers there were afraid to tell their story due to anti-war movements and how they were treated when they came home. My father was one of those soldiers and when he tells his story you can hear the sadness in his tone to tell his story.   Today’s soldiers want people to know their stories of what they did. They are not trying to get the glory of telling their story.  What they want is for the younger generations to see what war is like.

               

              My intent is to not only talk about the history side but also the personal side of it. For the earlier generations we have lost so much living history that we will never get back. With most of the WW1 veterans past away we will never be able to hear their stories. With the more modern day wars we have the chance to save those stories for the future generations.   I named my paper “Living History” for those who have served and are still telling their story.  Once those who are telling their story’s lived in war and were part of a change in history from the trench soldiers in WW1 to the government workers flying unman aircraft from home. They all have a story to tell and once there gone so is their story.

Sources

On the Front Line: True World War I Stories [NOOK Book], by Jon E. Lewis

World War One Short Stories ,by Bob Blaisdell (Editor)

Vietnam: The Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America's Most Disastrous Military Conflict, by 

Michael Lind

Vietnam: A View From the Frontlines,  by  Andrew Wiest

American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History, by Chris Kyle

No Easy Day: The Autobiography of a Navy Seal: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden, by Mark Owen

Stories from

Dan Goodall

Mary Ransom

SFC Evens

#12

With this week’s reading I found it to be interesting. Gottschall argues that storytelling is evolving.  For me history tells me that with time everything evolves.  Ranging from life, how we think, and how things are made and told. Gottschall even goes on to say that we evolve and want more storys. For me I look at halo for this. When the game first came out people went crazy they wanted more of the story. Fast forword to today there is countless video games and more than twice the number of books.  I knew people that would play the halo games for days on end because the story of one man’s journey to save the human race from being wiped out.

As of 11:00 11/10/13 I have picked three different wars to look at. I am starting with World War One with Rommel’s book “Attacks” , “World War One Short Stories” by Bob Blaisdell, and “On the Front Line: True World War I Stories” by Jon E. Lewis. Vietnam is my middle war I am going to use “Vietnam: A View From the Frontlines” by Andrew Wiest, and “Vietnam: The Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America's Most Disastrous Military Conflict” by Michael Lind. With the modern day wars I wanted to add that to my paper because it has affected everyone in the US in one way or another.  I am going to use “ No Easy Day” by Mark Owen and “American Sniper” by Chris Kyle.  With all this oral history for me to use I plan on showing that that with time war changes as well does stories about war.

#11

From the readings Gottschall presents that its not possible to write a genuinely honest memoir. In chapter 8 talks about how memory becomes increasingly unreliable as we get older. I think for one reason that we have a hard time recalling things is that when we get older our minds have so many memory’s that it’s hard to find that one we are looking for. Gottschall does refer to the example of “Fraudulent” authors saying that traumatic events through time. For me I have too many traumatic events that I have lived through on  hand I find it hard to believe Gottschall but on the other I can because at times I will relive those memories and find new things in them that were not there in the first place. For me I see all story’s  a little different. on my history side I look at how story’s has change history from a badly written book that came from Russia turned into a war to kill one religion because they were trying to take over. On the military side I see it as this is how honor our fallen hero’s by telling how brave they were and how they fought to the end.  In my life I try sometimes to live up to those stories of people who did brave things. This last summer I was up at Fort Lewis for Rotc. I had to climb up a 57ft tall tower and grab a zip line and free hang over 200ft. Not going to lie but it scared the pants off of me. I started to think what would my hero’s do. Just thinking of my hero’s got me to do the slide I think if it was not for that I would have not done it. Just as a side note there was no safety net or anything just a lake that was not very deep.  

Latest update to follow on my oral history and the military. I have drill over the weekend and I was able to talk to some of my fellow soldiers in the company. Some of the stories that they have told me were funny, sad, and downright amazing. I find their stories to amazing because nowhere in the world can a person find out so much about something from the people that were there and lived it. One thing that gets me every time talking to those guys is that I missed out on that deployment due to my son being born I wish I would have gone but to hear what they did and that they understand why I had to miss it makes it better but I do wish I could have been in what the Army calls “The Suck”.  I do not have any sources only from fellow soldiers which I have about 10 for now and they are being added to my paper.    

#10

Project Idea 1 ( oral history and the military)

RON DEVLIN Of The,Morning Call. (2001, Nov 11). Students relive military history by telling their relatives' stories** parkland classes celebrate the holiday with "the veterans wall.'. Morning Call. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/393040671?accountid=27045

                In an oral history exercise Art smith asked his ninth grade class to interview relatives and friends that had served in the military, he also asked the students to bring pictures to put on a wall as a memorial. Smith found that most of the people in the stories were in their teens when they had been enlisted or drafted, he also found that these soldiers came from diverse backgrounds. Smith taught his class that all this veterans were a part of history by being the primary eyewitnesses to the real story.

                Military and history go along with each other because without history the military could not learn from the past. We need to know the past to make a better future and I think that Smith was trying to teach his students that oral history is the best because the people who were present are the “primary eyewitnesses to history” and they know what actually happen and when they pass it on, that person can learn from the past and not make the same mistake and teach others not to make the mistake.

Buckley, C. (2012, Sep 24). Valley veterans tell war stories for oral military history project. McClatchy - Tribune Business News. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1069267596?accountid=27045     

            All military history begins with oral history, and the library of congress folk life center is doing just that to be able to preserve the oral history of the military told by the people who were actually there, the veterans themselves. This project is mostly made up of volunteers who go out and find stories orally, written, videotaped, or recorded. The veterans who participate in this project say that sharing their stories helps them heal from the pain of being in war. Some of the stories presented in the history channel came from the research done by the library of congress folk life center. When the veteran participates in this research they record him/her and when they are done the veteran will get a copy, so he can leave it for his posterity.

Project Idea 2 (Stories the military does not want told)

Olmsted, D. (2004). Telling Stories the Military Doesn't Want Told. Nieman Reports, 58(2), 45-48.

            The military has a history they don’t want people to know, and this article talks about that sad truth of what is being kept from the general public just so the military can have good public reputation. It is easy for reporters to talk to the grunts who say how happy they are being so far away from home, but it’s a very different story when the reported tries to talk to a soldier who is not as happy and feel like he is being kicked around especially when they really are. Reported Mark Benjamin heard of a soldier at fort Knox who was wounded, before he arrived with his photographer they moved the soldier from pitiful living and even worst medical care. When the reported found him the photographer was going to take a picture of the wounded soldier who was outside the medical barracks waiting in formation. The photographer was detained and taken to the garrison commander’s office. The military covered this story up by saying that they photographer had trespassed.

People that come from Ink

Gottschall hit a homerun with this chapter with me. One of the things that stood out to me the most was that Hitler liked plays from Wagner. This was a first for me when I found that out. Because I knew that Hitler was trying to become an art master and was kicked out of school for it and later down the road became the leader of Germany. One thing that Gottschall goes on is that he dehumanize Hitler. Anyone in their right mind would agree that Hitler was evil but before he did what he did nobody talks about it. I can understand that but sometimes talking about what they did is not a reason why they did what they did. With reading nonfiction I find it hard sometimes to believe what the person has put in their book because I could be reading another book from someone else and what if they both have different ancers then what. With me being in the military I was able to get for Christmas last year about 4-5 military books that former soldiers written about serving overseas. I found most of the things that they have put in those book to be as real as they could make it without having live rounds fly over your head.   With fiction I can get lost in that all day long.  With the Halo book series that help create the video games that changed a lot of ways video games are played. Even with our fiction movies have done that as well look at Avengers. It takes 4 different movie carters and has them all in a movie fighting to keep our world safe.  Gottschall makes a claim that we can be influenced by stories.  I know that there are times when I am reading a good fiction or nonfiction and it makes me what to go do what they are doing.  For my research project I am still looking but I am hoping to find one that I can use to show that in the history of time stories from former military battles or leaders have caused soldiers to do better.