The process of writing the emails to Mr. Hubbard was very different compared to most emails I write. The emails had to be professional business letters. It was a different format where I had to write a formal introduction, as well as, end my emails with sincerely etc. Writing emails like this really helped me to get ready for work or college.

I learned so much from my experts they answered so many questions in-depth with their stories from Vietnam. They both told me they were in their early twenties when they served in the war, although, only one was force to be drafted.  One of my experts talked about his counselor asking his why he thought he didn’t have PTSD. He said PTSD is usually caused by traumatic first hand experiences.. He said he didn’t have any strange experiences, but he feared not knowing what was going to happen next while at war. He also talked about a comrade who committed suicide during the war. There is so much good information that my experts gave me.

What I learned about finding and contacting an expert was to ask anybody I know if they knew someone in the war. Just not ruling out common everyday people I interact with everyday was something I learned because they can be the people with the best stories. Also finding experts that are doctors that are close to where I live because that way I can find someone who will be sure to do an interview with me. So basically, I learned to find a  common person who knows first hand about my topic.

Advice I have for any student interested in doing an interview with an expert for a project is to do it. An interview with an expert is great to get first hand information on the topic of their project. It can add depth to their project with real life stories or information. Also when finding an expert I would tell them to try to find a person close to them rather than find someone on a database online because they don’t always reply. There are so many people that they would never expect that may know about their topic and they should definitely ask everyone they know. Finding someone close could also make it easier for them to have face to face interviews.

I never thought that one of the most stable soldiers in this war would go so insane. Rat Kiley seemed very stable being the medic. However, Kiley began to talk strangely about strange topics like evil Vietnam bugs. He was very paranoid about what he described as bugs with messed up DNA, he thought the bugs had been chemically altered by napalm and tear gas. Riley then began to itch himself making scabs and then itching the scabs. He began probing for enemies no one could see and lost his sense of direction. Kat eventually doped himself up with pain medication from his medical kit and then shot himself in the foot. He was then sent to Japan. No one ever did say anything about Kat shooting himself in the foot on purpose because they all knew he had to get out of there.

A quote I found interesting was about a childhood friend named Linda. O’Brien said,  ”Linda was nine then, as I was, but we were in love. And it was real”(O’Brien 228). I thought this was interesting because this young childhood love taught him so much about life and death before he went to war. Linda was a little girl you he dated when he was nine years old. Linda wore a red hat that covered her hair and most of her head. Kids always tried to take this hat off her head and finally achieved this one day in class. When they pulled the hat off they found bald spots and stitches on Linda’s head, she had a brain tumor. She died near the end of summer. Tim O’Brien went to go see her dead body and felt very strange about seeing her dead body. This did not change when he was in war, he still was uneasy seeing dead bodies. This quote is also interesting because after Linda died he began to dream about her and believed she was living in his dreams. He would sleep all the time so he could see Linda again. All of this shows, how O’Brien acted towards death during war because of Linda’s death when he was a child.

My Netvibes URL:http://www.netvibes.com/starbucksislove

I want to explain what PTSD is and how soldiers get it after being in war because of the experiences they when through and the sites they saw. Knowing how soldiers get PTSD is important to because that’s usually the first step to finding out how to help it. Suicidal tendencies are usually caused by being depressed and being depressed goes hand in hand with PTSD so I want to focus on those serious PTSD cases. So far I don’t know what you can do to help with PTSD other than go to therapy or a special organization or program that specializes in PTSD, depression, and suicide. Knowing all of this and finding more about it can really help me shed light on this issue so it becomes more important.

I feel there is irony in the fact that Kiowa died in the waste field. After all these men had been through someone killed him that was so random. Also Kiowa’s death was almost a turning point for everyone in the book. They all blamed themselves for the death because they couldn’t help him. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross was one of the soldiers that felt extremely guilty about Kiowa’s death because he led the troops to the waste field that left everyone scarred forever. He was also the one who had to write the letter to Kiowa’s father and that left him feeling extremely guilty. Another soldier felt guilty because he had shown a picture of his girlfriend to Kiowa and after that forgot about him because he was stuck in his thoughts and didn’t notice Kiowa sinking until it was too late.

A quote that stood out to me was about Norman Bowker. “The letter covered seventeen handwritten pages, its tone jumping from self-pity to anger to irony to guilt to a king of feigned indifference. He didn’t know what to feel. In the middle for the letter, for example, he reapproached himself for complaining too much:”(O’Brien 156). This quote stood out to me very much because it talked about his mixed feelings after he came back from the war and how he couldn’t adjust to being back home. He had hung himself in the local YMCA and this goes with my topic for my presentation. He obviously had PTSD and suicidal tendencies since he committed suicide. This quote proved that many soldiers ended up with PTSD  after the war in Vietnam. Also it proved that soldiers with PTSD  sometimes thought about or went through with committing suicide.

Netvibes has begun to be a program that I might start using all the time. Netvibes helps keep my RSS feeds and programs organized as much as IGoogle does. However, I seem to still favor I google because I can get to everything very easily from IGoogle that I can not do in Netvibes as easily. Both let me keep up with my emails and google calendars to keep track of what I need to do. However, with I google I can get to my Google site and Goggle Documents which I use very often because of how easy they are to use.

      Another resource I have used recently that has helped me is the iGoogle Rss feeds to our class agenda, as well as, iGoogle all together. The class agenda is very helpful because it is right there on my iGoogle page that I see everyday, so I can now know when I have homework assignments and review what we worked on in class. IGoogle in general has been helpful because I make to do lists, so I can check off when I finish assignments for class. Also, I make sticky notes to remind myself of quick notes for things. I google also allows me to subscribe to different programs and Rss feeds. I google has made me a more sufficient student since I have used it.