The End

  The movie Apocalypse Now gives a completely new perspective of O'Brien and Komenyaka's themes of soldiers psychological well being. The movie starts out with a vivid flashback of fire and explosions in the jungle with the haunting tune "The End", by The Doors playing in the background gives the ominous feeling of fear and despair. Images of helicopters and flames flash behind Captain Willard's face as if they are stuck behind his eyes and every time he blinks its as if he travels back to the terror and fear. This transparency is similar to Komenyakas poem in which the narrator is taken back to his memories of Vietnam simplify by seeing his reflection  in the black granite or by even touching on of the many name. It throws him, like it does Captain Willard in the movie, into a whirlwind of emotion. Many who experience flashbacks like this in public are able to handle themselves, but as the film simulates, when they are in private not all soldiers can hold it together. It begins though with the contradiction though of the Capt. not wanting to be in the safe city but the dangerous jungles of Vietnam. This is a startling thing that is hard to understand, but it simulates they contradictions O'Brien uses for war and soldiers in "The Things They Carried." O'Brien says. "Often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn't", which is showing how many soldiers who come back have either trouble retelling their experiences or that their deeds in war have somehow become more important. So important that they feel they are the only deeds that matter and the only place they fit in.