Maus/Night

Both of the Maus books and Night are very similar to each other, but they are also different in many ways. While reading Night, it is from the point of view of someone directly in the Holocaust, and the Maus books were both based in and out of a concentration camp. But in the end, the concentration camps both had the same effects on the characters, and they all ended up with some sort of emotional problems. Both of these books just go to show how scarring the concentration camps of the Holocaust were, and jow your life would never really be the same after the fact, even if you did survive. Both of these books proved the fact that concentration camps were inhumane and wrong, and they also put an interesting story along with it. For example, in Night, prisoners of the concentration camp would constintly be beated relentlessly for no apperent reason, as well as in Maus 1. In Maus 2, it was basically just the aftermath of a concentration camps vicims son, and how he thinks his father is going crazy due to his expirience during the Holocaust.

Restrepo Writing

Watching “Restrepo” and reading the book “Fallen Angels” taught me a lot about war. It showed me its true grit, but it also showed me how it could closely resemble modern day life in America. I learned its true grit while seeing/reading about death in combat, and how scarred soldiers were when they lost a man. At the top of the hill during “Restrepo” when a man was killed, his fellow soldiers tears gave me a sense of guilt, knowing he died protecting us civilians. These stories also showed me how normal war life can be. In “Restrepo” when one of the soldiers turned music on and they were all dancing and laughing, this is probably something they would do back home. Also, when one of the soldiers was playing guitar, it was basically a setting back in America with soldiers talking about whatever was on there mind, as conversation was in “Fallen Angels”.  

Restrepo Pre-Writing

During the movie, the firefights from when the soldiers were in Afghanistan gave me a better feel as to what the men in Fallen Angels had to go through. Another thing is during down time in Afghanistan the soldiers would have fun, like listen to music, like the men in Fallen Angels would do when they would play volleyball. Also, the men in Afghanistan would constantly get off topic and joke around, sometimes even during firefights as the men in Fallen Angels would do. This gave me a good vision as to how life at war really was. When the troop in Resrepo lost Restrepo, they went as far as to making a movie after him. This reminded me of how upset the men in Fallen Angels were when they lost a man. In the movie, a lot of the men would lift weights to keep in shape. In the book, men would constantly stay active to stay in shape. In the movie, the soldiers cheered when they killed a man from far away, because they knew the victim had no chance of fighting back, meaning no danger for them. This reminded me of how scared Perry was when he killed that Cong face to face. In the movie when the soldiers found out they could go home, they were ecstatic. This was a lot like how Perry and Peewee felt when they were told they were going home. In the movie, the men had a lot of down time, which seemed boring. In the book, they would spend there down time talking about everything, which was a lot like the men from Restrepo’s down time. When Peewee and Perry were trapped in the spiderhole in Nam, it closely resembles how Restrepo would feel if they were in combat with no backup. During the movie, there was a moment when the soldiers were moving into enemy territory on foot and it was an eerie silence the whole way. This reminded me of when the troops in Nam were on Cong territory and there were Congs less than 20 yards away from them.