Post #5 World War II

In the first story, it was interesting to hear about the home front and how people felt at home about the war.  It was also very scary to hear about how Mrs. Terry's husband had changed after the war.  I didn't expect such a drastic change.  She says, "Until the war he never drank.  He never even smoked.  When he came back he was an absolute drunkard."  It is amazing to see how much a person can change after having to experience the brutalities of war.  It was also very interesting to see that many of the citizens at home didn't really know what was going on overseas.  Without a radio, which was a luxury, there was no way to receive current events.  The people at home didn't know what was happening.


In the second story, it was very intriguing to hear how the brutality of the Japanese converted into the brutality of the American soldiers as well.  The Americans witnessed the horrible actions of the Japanese, unused to the mind set of "never give up," and turned that brutality into their own actions back at the Japanese.  Mr. Sledge says, "this hatred toward the Japanese was just a natural feeling that developed elementally."  The Germans would surrender when they knew that they were hopeless.  They then became normal men.  However, the Japanese did not surrender and so the Americans did not understand the mindset that the Japanese had.

Entry #4 World War II

My first reaction to these stories was sadness and horror.  What these men had to go through is awful and no one should have to go through it.  However, it is also amazing how much honor and bravery the men had.  I was very surprised though at the lack of emotion when Rasmus was talking about the deaths in his platoon.  Maybe he felt like he had to hold in his emotions after what he had seen overseas.  Maybe he couldn't let himself show any more emotion because he had left it all in Europe.  I was very surprised when he said, "Our guys were getting killed, too.  Irony again, the first one killed was our platoon sergeant."  This shows his lack of emotion about death.  I have read the book "The Things They Carried" which is about the Vietnam war.  In this book, the author uses a lot of emotin when he describes one of the men getting killed.  Rasmus' story was very different and his tone almost the opposite of the tone of Tim O'Brian, the author of "The Things They Carried."  Rasmus was very direct and literal, while O'Brian used symbolism and emotion to tell the story.  I enjoyed reading the different tone of Rasmus from what I was used to with O'Brian.

Post #3

After reading more about the depression it really hit me how much the lower and middle class suffered from this period of time.  It is really hard to understand as someone who lives in the North Shore, because we have never gone to bed hungry and most likely never will.  As they describe how they felt and how they had to get through the hard times, it is very depressing to hear what they had to go through.  Some families were so short for food and money that they felt the only way out was to commit suicide.  The fact that one thing (the stock market crash) could affect so many people in such negative ways is very disheartening.

Robertson and Paulsen

Arthur A. Robertson

After reading Robertson's story I was a little surprised to hear how badly the rich had suffered after the stock market crashed.  I didn't realize how great the effect was of the crash and that it really affected everyone, not just the poor.  It seemed to me that Robertson was lucky and didn't seem to lose that much money.  However, he saw all of his friends lose a lot of money and some of them even comitted suicide.  But when he talked about the suicides he did so without a lot of emotion which was also very surprising.  He talked about it like it was very common and not surprising when a wealthy businessman killed himself because he had lost all of his money.  He says, "Suicides, left and right, made a terrific impression on me, of course."  He claims to have been affected by the deaths, but the next sentence he says, "One day you saw the prices at a hundred, the next at $20, at $15."  He was talking about the stock prices like the fact that they dropped so fast was just as dreadful as the suicides.  He seems to have been very stuck-up and cocky because he did not lose as much as everyone else.

Ed Paulsen

This story was almost a complete contrast to Robertson's recollection of the stock market crash.  Paulsen had no money and no where to live.  It was interesting to hear how he made do by riding on railcars to wherever they would take him.  The car would be his home until the train stopped and he had to find a new train.  This is very depressing to hear right after reading about the wealthy businessmen complaining just about stock prices.  As long as they had a place to live, they shouldn't be complaining because most of the people in their town were homeless and starving to death.  He says, "We crawl into a railroad sandbox, almsot frozen to death."  The living conditions for him was whatever the train had to offer.  He talks about the struggles of trying to find a job, while Robertson talks about the struggles of dealing with low stock prices.  It's sad to see how the two classes have no connection to each other and don't know what the other is doing.