The Joys of Memoir Writing

I read the memoir "A Guarantee in Life" by Justin S., you can read it here.

The memoir is great, it starts off by clearly stating to the reader what the memoir is supposed to accomplish in a reflection sort of way. He talks about regrets and how everything that those horrible things that happened made you who you are today. He had me right away because that's the sort of mindset I have towards bad things that happen. I think a lot about not having regrets because I have those regretful things to thank for me being who I am, and I can't imagine not existing...because I quite enjoy my existence. Justin (Yeah, we're on a first name basis) did a great job of using imagery and his detailing was just enough to put me right in his shoes. I could feel what he was talking about. When his five year old self got out of the bath tub and put on his pajamas I could feel the way itchy little kid pajamas feel on a freshly bathed body. He was able to tap into my memories to feel his memories. I felt that he could have supplemented his writing with a bit more reflection from his current self back to the memory he is telling. He did a lot of reflection in the beginning and the end but not really  any mixed in. That being said, the reflection that he did put in at the beginning and end was really good and perfectly complimented the story. At the end he talks about his feelings now that he looks back on it and how much he's changed and grown because of his father not being there for him. We also learn that his father becomes a part of his life (however minor that part may be) based on the reflection at the end. The father is expressing regret that he couldn't  have been there for Justin's childhood, tying back perfectly to the beginning of the memoir.

The Vietnam War a brief history

The country of Vietnam was split between the communist north and the anticommunist south and in 1956 the south refused to participate in unification attempts. In 1958 the United States began sending military assistance to Southern Vietnam. By 1968 there were 536,000 Americans in Vietnam which turned many at home against the war.  Richard Nixon withdrew troops from Southern Vietnam to let them fight their own war, which Nixon called Vietnamization (possibly the stupidest name on the planet). He destroyed a communist supply base in Cambodia which violated Cambodia’s neutrality and provoked anti-war protests in the United States. The war stretched on from 1958 through 1973 when the United States withdrew completely. And the 15 years we had troops over there obviously worked really well because in 1975 Southern Vietnam surrendered to the North. So we definitely didn’t waste 15 years making absolutely no progress, that definitely is not what happened…at all.

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/vietnam/vietnamwar.htm

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/vietnam/index.cfm

"Homeland of the Free"

Langston Hughes is one of the few people who is so widely renowned and deserves every bit of it. He never disappoints. I could read “Let America Be America Again” a million times over and find new meaning each time. My favorite line is “Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath”. It resonates with me for some reason. I feel like patriotism is such a double standard in this country. Calling yourself “conservative” automatically stamps you with an American flag. The right has monopolized patriotism. The tea party is a radical group and they wave around American flags and they’re seen as patriotic. It’s fine for them to criticize President Obama because they’re just exercising their right as citizens. Oh, but if anyone said anything against President Bush they’d be shot down as unpatriotic. I mean, really, how dare anyone criticize a Republican president? Because to be Republican is to be more Patriotic than anyone else in the history of the country…ever! To me, being patriotic is to expect your country to be the best it can be, which can include criticizing a completely out of touch President.

America was built on good ideas but it has never really fully reached those ideals. First the natives were kicked out and then that whole slavery bit, it’s hard to build an equality based country when its foundation is so cracked. America was never America. And I’m not sure it ever will be. Equality is such a hard thing to get to, because part of life is that everyone will never be fully equal. It’s like the first thing we read in English this year, the excerpt from Harrison Bergeron. When do we draw the line on equality? However, when people are hindering other people from doing things, that’s when there’s a need for equality.

Hughes and Fitzgerald have very similar views of the American Dream, that it’s broken. They both go about it slightly different but the fundamentals of the statements they’re making are the same. People at the top are continuously pushing down people beneath them because they can, because it keeps them at the top.