A little more than forty years ago, there were student protests occurring right on our very own UW-Madison campus. As some of you may know, my grandpa Richard Osterloth (who passed away in 2006) was one of the brave police officers who was involved in the Dow riots. Sadly, he was hit in the head with a cinder block from a mean student and had to be rushed to the hospital. In his living room, he had a large photograph of him in the crowd of students right before he was attacked. In seventh grade I interviewed him about this for my history class. It meant a lot to me to watch Two Days in October because it felt like it brought me a little closer to my grandpa, whom I miss very very much!
I felt like Two Days in October really captured both sides of the Vietnam War. Actually, I didn't know anything about this war (except what my grandpa had told me), so it was nice to hear both the United States and Vietnam viewpoints instead of just the biased US one. Overall, it was a very enjoyable movie.
Our novel, The Things They Carried, is also very intriguing to read. I'm not really a war geek, but I think I'll enjoy reading this novel about the war. I felt very empathetic for Tim O'Brian when he found out that he was drafted. I would've had an IMPOSSIBLE time deciding if I should run away or leave for war and potentially die.
After reading Lampert Smith's essay, Times Have Changed For Student Protesters, I must admit that I was a little bit appalled. If students think they'd rather watch Grey's Anatomy than protest, they obviously aren't very dedicated or devoted to their cause. Clearly, they're being lazy. I think new technologies like texting and facebook would be helpful for spreading the word about protesting--but getting your lazy butt off the couch is the first step here.
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Two Days in October was great, but I don't think it would've been that memorable if it weren't set so close at the UW. I spent the greater part of my summer at many of those locations on campus, and hearing about this rather vicious fight that occurred at my hang-out spots was striking and rather troubling.
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