TIM O’BRIEN AND THE WAR IN VIETNAM “ON THE RAINY RIVER”

WHAT WAS UP WITH THE VIETNAM WAR? It began as a civil war between the Communist North and French-Colonial South. What this means is that the native Vietnamese in the North were fighting for control of the whole county. France had previously had control over Vietnam, much like England once controlled the US. Vietnam was a COLONY. After the fighting continued, the US decided to intervene and help Southern Vietnam fight the communist “guerillas”. We entered the war in 1964 under the direction of President Lyndon B. Johnson.

PROTESTS AND THE DRAFT American’s were highly opposed to the war in Vietnam, as many felt it wasn’t our concern. War protests were common. Anti-War sentiment peaked in the mid-60s. The draft was a government measure taken to ensure soldiers would enlist in Vietnam. Any man who were born between 1944 and 1950 were required to sign up.

HOW THE DRAFT WORKED Each day of the year was assigned a draft number and entered into a random lottery. If your birthday fell on a date picked at random from the lottery, you were ordered to report for military service. The draft lottery increased the hatred over the war, and many people became “draft dodgers”

THREE OPTIONS Men who received a draft notice had three options: 1. Go to war in Vietnam, even if they opposed it. 2. Refuse to go, possibly publically with a draft card burning, and face criminal charges. 3. Cross the border to Canada to escape penalty.

WHY AMERICA STILL HATES THIS WAR 1,647 soldiers STILL (as of May 2013) remain unaccounted for. It was called “a war we could not win”. The jungles of Vietnam made it impossible for our soldiers to make a dent in the rebel Viet Cong (VC) forces. Many soldiers died and the US withdrew from the war without “winning”. Many people feel that the massive casualties (58,220 soldiers died In-Country) did not solve anything. Essentially, the soldiers died for nothing.

TIM O’BRIEN An author who writes “semi-autobiographical” narratives about his own time in Vietnam. O’Brien served as a soldier in Vietnam when he was 22. He was drafted; he did not enlist willingly. The short story we are reading, “On the Rainy River”, is a chapter from O’Brien’s book The Things We Carried

SEMI-AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL Tim O’Brien, the narrator in “On The Rainy River” is NOT Tim O’Brien the author. Though he is inspired by the author’s experience, the character and the events in the story are fictionalized. We, as an audience, will never know which parts of the story are true and which are not.