Week #1: Tiger Force Chapters 1-7
Share a description of one of the major characters from the Tiger Force book. Include multiple qualities of the character you choose. Quote from the book where appropriate. Do not duplicate the choices of classmates.
So far, Donald Wood seems to be my favorite character. Honestly, he reminded me of my father when I was reading about him, so maybe that is why I chose him. He lived in 3 different cities growing up, and had a twin sister. So far we know him as a forward artillery observer who had memorized the Song Ve Valley in order to protect his fellow soldiers. He was educated from the Officer Candidate School at Fort Still, Oklahoma, and wanted to learn about the Vietnamese culture. So, he took it upon himself to learn about it. The main reason I chose Wood is because I appreciated his humbleness when they found the bodies of the mother and the baby. He was supposed to be this tough-guy, an officer that the newcomers looked up to, and when he saw the mother and the baby, it hit him hard. He was clearly bothered by it, and to me, it showed his true character.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I know we cannot duplicate the choices of others, but I still feel that I like Donald Wood the most. Wood himself, his humanity and his understanding of the local Vietnamese showed us what the most important factor is for winning a war. It is true that we do need some tough guys like Sam Ybarra who can kill people without hesitation during a war. However, if the entire army is brutal like him, it is hard to tell if they will win the war. The Vietnam War is not like the Battle of Stalingrad, which needed the soldiers to destroy as much as they can with a short time. Vietnam War needed time for American soldiers to find Vietcong and destroy them. As a result, American soldiers had to live in Vietnam for a long time. Thus they had to try to gain trust from the locals or at least keep them from becoming their enemies. If all the soldiers were very brutal, then the locals would stand up to fight them. By that time, the American soldiers had to face a unacquainted country filled with unknown enemies.
ReplyDeleteWhat Wood did is pretty important for winning the war. He refused to buy into the grunt talk about every Vietnamese was an enemy. He understood how much the locals loved their homeland, so he did not like when the soldiers were joking around while relocating the locals. If most soldiers could do what Wood did, their lives in Vietnam would have been less horrible.
Thank you Kristyn & Yiming for giving us a deeper look at Lieutenant Wood. I too respect Wood's efforts to study Vietnamese culture. How challenged he must have felt throughout his time in Vietnam! Perhaps the course of the war is different with more men like Wood? Is anyone going to write about Warrant Officer Apsey? As the lead investigator, I think we need to take a close look at his character.
ReplyDeleteI can, probably, relate better to one of the sergeants, Sanchez perhaps, mostly because of the fact that I was a sergeant, too,responsible for 12 guys' lives and well-being, if you can call the life at war this way.Different war, different terrain, different climate, different pretty much everything, but the responsibilities are the same: every army runs on sergeants.
ReplyDeleteKen Green was such a troublemaker like me when I was little. Although my trouble was not big or hurt other people like Green but I totally understand his characteristic. Green has a strong personality and short temper. He does not want to live in a frame. All he wants is to do whatever he like and no one can stop him from doing it because he's the the one who rule himself. One example would be after Green causing trouble, his father was beaten him for misbehaving. However, the punishment he received never stop him. This is exactly like my childhood's characteristic. I hate to be the follower who listen and do whatever other people told to do. When someone force me to do something I will do the opposite. A good example would be not doing my homework causing teachers to report my parents many time. As a result of doing that, my mom always beaten me up with either ruler, belt, hanger and even a ballon stick. Those punishment never stop me instead I used the pain as an energy to drive me to do whatever I desire until I feel that I want to stop.
ReplyDeleteI found myself drawn too Douglas Teeters a Medic.
ReplyDeleteI sympathized with his thoughts on his experiances of trying to save lives and help comfort the ones that were on their death beds.
As in chapter two when he un-packed and repacked his medic bag. The pressure that he must have felt,from all of images of dying soldiers that haunted him from earlier assignments. Knowing that these men would be looking to his to save them if they were injured. Ensuring that he packed enough morphine, as he remembered the other soldiers begging him to make their pain go away, knowing that that was the only thing that would subside their cries of pain and agony. I could not imagine being a doctor or nurse in this type of situation. To be in the line of fire, and try to save lives is just as brave as any other soldier. To hold the responsability to save all that you can and to try and comfort the ones you can't must take a mental toll. To watch some-one die repeadiatly must have been like laying with death.
Private Terrence Kerrigan is a 19 year old surfer from San Gabriel California. He enlisted in the Army because he was a son to a single mother who struggled to give her son what she could. He didn’t want to live the poor life. He wanted to attend law school and his current social status would never have given him the opportunities to reach that goal. Enlisting in the army would have given him the GI bill which would have paid for him to go to college. When he enlisted he did not know he was going to be sent to Vietnam. He was young and scared when he entered Carentan as a team member of Tiger Force. When his team was deployed to Song Ve River they were shot at. Kerrigan couldn’t calm himself down from this very small attack.
ReplyDeleteSo far, Kerrigan seems to be compassionate with noncombatants, an example would be when he helped the women back onto her bike after she was kicked off by a team member. He tries to make this place not seem so bad comparing the palm trees to his home town in California, even saying he might have to try surfing in the China Sea. I think Private Kerrigan is a young soldier who couldn’t have possibly prepared for the life that is about to happen. He seems dutiful and respectful so far.
I agree with Alex. Sergeant Sanchez is my favorite so far. I was also a Sergeant and we are the backbone of the military. The Sergeant gets a lot of responsibility. Since Sanchez is already mentioned I would have to go with another troop leader like Sergeant Trout.
ReplyDeleteI could relate to Bill Carpenter from Jefferson County, Ohio. He was a football player, a blue collar rail worker, and had an older brother serving in Vietnam. He liked to brag and wanted to be part of the elite Tiger Force. When Carpenter was ordered by Sgt. Trout to get rid of the body of the civilian Ybarra killed by slitting his throat, he thought about the card he was given about handling prisoners. Soldiers were advised they would be court-martialed for degrading, torturing, or killing a prisoner. Carpenter not only knew what the Tigers were doing on was morally wrong, he knew it was illegal.
ReplyDeleteAs a soldier Wood knew all about the Song Ve Valley. He had been studying maps in order to help other battalion. He went on to St. Thomas Aquinas College but he dropped out because he did want to make his father disappointed for a Navy veteran of World War II and Korea, he volunteered for the 101st Airborne to make his family proud of him. He is smart and tough when he has to go to the war. He did not afraid at all when he needed to kill someone for him to win the war.
ReplyDeleteThe character that stands out to me the most would be Donald Wood. He is a 22yr. old officer who knows all about Song Ve Valley. He is an artillery observer, recently just joined the Tigers. Donald studies maps four-mile-wide-by-six-mile-long river basins. His main job is to become familiar with every crevice of the valley, confidently call in air strikes when platoon is located in Vietcong positions. Mr. Wood studied Vietnamese culture, both in Officer Candidate School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and later on his own. Having knowledge in Vietnamese culture is a huge plus for fighting in the Vietnam War. Most of his life has been on the move.
ReplyDeleteHe toyed with the idea of Joining the Peace Corps, wanted to go to Africa to set up schools. Unfortunately, he dropped out of St. Thomas Aquinas College in Saint Paul after one semester. To make his parents proud and redeem himself, he volunteered for 101st Airborne. What stands out to me about him is that he is very sympathetic and sensitive to those peasants and villagers who are forced to leave their home and stay in renovation camps.
If you read through the blogs about Lt. Wood in total, you can really get a good sense of his character. (Kristyn was first to post and Yiming, Natavade, and Brendan all added some good info.) Put all these together and they would be an example of an outstanding blog. Double check instructions and rubric to maximize your points.
ReplyDeleteIn chapters one through seven of this book I found that Wood and Green are two of my favorite characters. For Wood I believe he is a good soldier because he is there only to fight for what his country wants. He is not there with the intention to kill and he is not there to harm the citizens or their land intentionally. One can see this on page 47 when it was stated that Wood was "disturbed" to see all of the people leaving their homes along with leaving most of the items that they owned behind. He makes it clear that he is there to serve his country, and not harm any civilians. Wood will fight against any army who tries to prevent him from getting what he needs for his country but yet he is not targeting the Vietnamese in particular. The Vietnamese just happen to be the army in his way, preventing him from what his country is trying to accomplish. Another example of when one can see his care for the citizens is when the other tiger force members shoot at a hut and later find that two innocent bodies were shot, a woman and a child. I do think that he is a strong leader and guidance portion of the Tiger Force but I'm not sure if he is the best one or not. I do like it that he is not afraid to express his opinion to lead the group such as telling Ybarra that they will not be using firearms on anyone who is not armed (responding to Ybarra's idea of making the valley an open-fire zone). This is probably one of the best leadership skills that Wood has, besides that he is experienced and can show the group the tricks that they might come across while moving from place to place in enemy territory such as the bamboo or the trip strings.
ReplyDeleteAnother character that I think is a good leader throughout the first part of this book is Green. I think that he has most of the right values like Wood but he is not afraid to kill (which it seems that Wood is). One of his weaknesses however is that he does not express his opinions about things until after the fact, or not at all. On page 64 it is stated that Green was "sickened" when he saw what his friend did to the prisoner by killing him. Even though he participated in the beating because he thought that was what he had to do to accomplish something he was not necessarily trying to kill the prisoner. I think that he is one step closer to becoming like Ybarra than Wood is because it seems as if he may have started with the right values, but is more easily influence by what other soldiers think is "right". He says that Sam has become crazy and that he is enraged with the war. Over time I could see Green becoming like this too.
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ReplyDeleteHarold Austin is a lean, bespectacled lieutenant colonel, who assumed command of battalion on June 10th. He was a battalion executive officer who rarely left command headquarters. The lieutenant meets with the battalion officers every morning to discuss strategies and review intelligence reports on NVA and VC movements in operations era. He is a "by-the-book" starched-shift officer who is of a different color and he keeps tags on the Tigers. Born in Colorado, Harold spent time in the Pentagon and arrived in Vietnam in August of 1966. He pretty much has a good amount of responsibility in his hands.
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