Journal 8 from Lexia Wilson

While watching the short film "The Marlboro Man" the most important thing that I noticed was his PTSD. There were many signs and the first one was when he came home from the war to his girlfriend. When he got back home he had planned to marry his girl friend but before the wedding he started to have doubts because he just wanted to be alone. Another sign of PTSD was his reoccurring nightmare of him looking down the barrel of his rifle about to kill someone. The final sign that pointed toward his PTSD was his thoughts of suicide. He had these thoughts all the time. He almost killed himself in Iraq but was stopped and once he returned home he had also planned out his death here; he was going to ride his motorcycle into or off of a mountain. The place in this short film where I thought the writing was the best was when he said that he would rather have someone ask if they can help or do anything for them when they return home from the war rather than through a party for them. Something that I believe that we can do to help war veterans when they return is do a study on people who have witnessed something awful from the war to acquire PTSD and figure out what in the brain makes this happens and what we can do to try and reverse the affects of PTSD.

What struck me about the hobo lifestyle in the story within the book "Holding On" was that the hobos stuck together and always helped each other out. They would help each other out by leaving clean pans out so other hobos could come along and cook their group a good dinner. When they were done they would then clean the pots and pans up again and leave them for the next group to come along. Another way that they would help each other out was by leaving signs on telephone poles. Such as, a tic tack toe board with an arrow pointing in that meant that it was a good place to go and get some work, and two jagged lines either meant that there was a dog in there or there was a bad man so it wasn't a good place to go. I just found it interesting that even though these people had nothing and were out on the streets they still looked after each other all the time. Where I thought the writing was the best within this story was "A hobo never worried about being broke. He knew that he could work for his breakfast, and he knew he could work for his dinner." If I was out of work and had to go somewhere else to find different opportunities I believe that I would go to the city because there will always be work in the city. Once I got there I would do any kind of work that I could to make some money in order to get back on my feet.