The shared experience unites the previously unrelated. It gathers a group of people, labels them, and through that shared experience defines who they are. The shared experience is black and white, inside and outside, to have and to have not. Athletes are a good example to use because of the preparation involved which ultimately unites them. The military is a better example because the experience can possibly result in death, a premature expiration of the game clock.
Among other noteworthy themes, two former veterans of the Vietnam War harness the concept of the shared experience in pieces of literature that are a result from each authors' time spent as a GI. Yusef Komunyakaa wrote a poem entitled, "Facing It." Tim O'Brien became a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Literature for his book, The Things They Carried. Both works reluctantly embrace the concept of misunderstanding. Both authors attempt to relate to the misunderstood, quickly realizing that those not privy to the experience have difficulty understanding. "Facing It," whose narration is retrospective and takes place in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, introduces this idea when the narrator, presumably the author, reflects on those lost but does so among the living. "Names shimmer on a woman's blouse/ but when she walks away/ the names stay on the wall"(19). The author then accounts other examples of activity defining life as it happens much to the unrest of the narrator who seems incapable of living outside of "the stone."
Similarly, Tim O'Brien commiserates with Mr. Komunyakaa by introducing an unseen character, Martha, who, "àbelonged to another world, which was not quite realà"(17). Martha is a letter writer far away from Lieutenant Cross's jungle and responsibility, his 20 pound sack and his incessant anticipation of death. She is incapable of knowing what he knows and will never understand that her attempts that come only in the form of, "Jimmy, ...