Veteran and O'Brien comparison/contrast

      O'Brien's experience in the Vietnam war was very similar but also different from the veterans' experiences in the Iraq war. It was similar in the mutual fear of death in both wars, before the war, death was just another noun, an idea to the soldiers,  no on had thought about what it is like to really die, or to watch your fellow comrade die in front of you. "There was no twitching or flopping. Kiowa, who saw it happen, said it was like watching a rock fall, or a big sand bag or something-just boom, the down-not like in movies where the dead guy rolls around and does fancy spins." (O'Brien, 6) When Ted Lavender died, instead of rolling around in pain and dying off saying his last words in the arms of his best friend, he just, died. Quick and real, with all the weight of the things he carried, he just straight up fell to the ground after being shot, just like that. The reality of him actually dying gave the other soldiers a reality check, war isn't a game, real people will die, and that idea really doe not sink in till one's experienced/witnessed it for themselves. Veteran Truman Muir Irwin was serving in Iraq when he was hit in the leg, which was lucky compared to his best friend who was shot in the chest and died later on in the hospital. When faced upon death, one can't really think about anything else expect for "holy shit I'm gonna die." It wasn't till later that Truman realized that his best friend was shot and dying while he is sitting here worrying about his leg pain, he felt ashamed, and mourned for his best friends death, but it's just all a tiny piece of the game that makes war real. While facing death is something all the soldiers had to deal with whether they are stationed in Iraq or Vietnam, the life after war for the veterans were drastically different. After the war of Vietnam, people kept quite about it except for to blame and shame the veterans for the things they did, the villages they destroyed, the innocent people they killed, and no one seemed to talk much about the war. "Many years after the war Jimmy Cross came to visit me.......and talked about everything we has seen and done so long ago, all the thing we still carried through our lives." (O'Brien,27) People pretended like the war never happened, only the soldiers remember what the horrific memories, after about 20 years when Bollywood began to make movies about the war did people finally start to talk and accept the war. For veteran Kobe Bazelle, a machine gunner in the Traq war, things were very different, after he came back from the war, he started a blog and people would would it and ask him questions and discuss the war, whether good or bad. Instead of hiding and being ashamed of it, he embraced it and shared his unique experience with people all over the world.