"Facing It"

Recently in class we have been preparing for our big exam by doing multiple choice corrections. I am terrible at them. I have no idea why. Last year I typically did well when we practiced but for some reason this year I have gotten a lot worse. If you think about it, it should really be the opposite. I should be improving. Buuut no. Then again I guess it makes sense. But I guess I just have to face it. (Buddumpchhhh get it?)

The most recent practice we did is a poem about the Vietnam Veterams Memorial which is in Washington, D.C called "Facing It" by Yusef Komunyakaa. It's pretty sad but it's also a great way of explaining how the wall affects veterans and families. At first the speaker explains how he gets lost "inside" (2) the walls. When he's lost, he finds himself trying not to cry. The wall reminds him of the hardships he endured at war. Before he came, he knew that seeing the wall and fading inside of it would bring back strong emotions. The speaker never directly says that which shows that he had tried to prepare especially when he says, "I said I wouldn't" (3). The fact that he compares himself to a "bird of prey" (7) parallels to what he was in the war. When he was a solider, he probably felt like bird always looking for either a dead, dying, or alive victim to devour. The small creatures fear the birds that eat them. But at the same time, everyone out there was a bird of prey which cannot exactly provide the best comfort. The speaker talks like when he is looking at the wall, the wall is holding him ever so tightly in his grasp but when he turns away, it lets him go. The speaker can potentially be saying that when he's there at the wall, his mind is infected with all these swarming memories but as soon as he's ready to turn away, they leave. He might be commenting on how we aren't affected by all the details of a memory every day but how we are when we focus and return to a certain state of mind. As the speaker reads over the "58,022" (14) engraved names, he seems to be looking for his own. He even is "expecting" (15) to see it as if he's still amazed at how he is still alive. I mean, considering how many people were killed during this war and being a survivor and going back to "visit" everyone has to make you think that you're still with them. But is he wishing he had died with them? Thinking about everything those soldiers had to come back to after putting themselves out  there and seeing things that we don't even want to ever think about makes me wonder if the speaker had wished he had died there versus coming back. As he touches the name of a fellow soldier, the moment rushes back to him when he was with that soldier. The fact that the veteran is strong enough to even go back and be okay after a tsunami of feelings and memories already shows a lot about his character. The idea of "Facing It", it being the war, being the emotions, being the memories, has to be one of the hardest things the speaker has to do after the war. The wall captures him and his mind. In a split second, it springs back all of the feelings the speaker had. "Facing It" is one of the hardest things the speaker has to do.