Maus-Night Blog

Maus and Night are both interesting pieces of work, in which they depict the events of the Holocaust.  What sets them apart is how the author presents the story being told.  Night is a novel and is written to describe the horrors of the Holocaust, while Maus is a cartoon which puts the Holocaust in lighter terms, although it also shows the horrors of the Holocaust.  Though they are presented completely differently, they both do a good job of informing the reader about the Holocaust, and they both had similarities.  In both of the books, the characters probably knew what their fate was, and they had to rely on others to support them.  Both books depict how tragic the Holocaust is and how common death is, and both show the hope that remained with the Jews, even in the camps.  I would recommend reading both of these books because they effectively tell the story of the Holocaust in their own unique ways.

Restrepo Blog Assignment

Prewrite:
Soldiers from both Restrepo and Fallen Angels are excited to get into the war. Also, they both go on dangerous patrols and get ambushed while doing it. They both set up a base near a village and try to keep good relations with them to help.  In Fallen Angels, Brew dies and everyone is emotional, and the same goes for when Restrepo dies. They both put a lot of effort into killing at least one man, even though it probably didn't make that much of a difference in the large scheme of things. I noticed how its tough for people in both to sleep because of the terrible things that they have seen war, and it puts them through a lot of emotional troubles. They both are able to talk to their families somehow, but they both usually act cool to their families and tell them everything is fine when it isn't. Other companies and squads lose a lot of people in both, and they remind themselves how they have to fight to not be like them. By the time they actually see combat most of them have lost their curiosity about war and are worried and want to go home in both. Lastly, both of them remember their dead soldiers in a way.  In Restrepo, a flare is shot off over the place where the soldier died and in Fallen Angels they make a cake on Brew's birthday, and they both mourn their deaths.

Writing:
Reading Fallen Angels and watching Restrepo have taught me a lot about war.  The most significant thing I have pulled from these was that war is not like how it is depicted in most movies.  There is a lot less heroism, and combat is much more realistic and balanced between both sides.  In the book and movie, it was obvious that the U.S. military struggled a lot at different times.  When the squads went on patrols, they both took fire and lost soldiers.  In Fallen Angels, they lost Lieutenant Carroll and they lost Restrepo in Restrepo.  When they were in battles, they didn't have an unlimited supply of superior weapons to easily take out the enemy.  The enemy had weapons just as good, and they used good strategies that gave the Americans a real challenge.