Night Life

I really did like Rat Kiley. I sort of don't like revisiting this story because I am terribly paranoid in the dark. Something about that black canvas backdrop of the night pushes my imagination to its most sinister depths. Spending weeks upon weeks under the cloak of dark silence, attempting to block out the very real boogeymen with guns and grenades would be maddening. His experiences also remind me of the moment where the found Kiowa's body. To see so much carnage in friends would be stressful enough without the constant darkness. I am not sure how much I can write about this chapter because its mostly based on the insanity of the dark and the unknown, and more importantly, its freaking me out.

The Ghost Soldiers

   Perhaps its just me, but O'Brien's near-death, terrifying experience turned him into Mary Anne Bell from the Song Tra Bong for just a little bit. Especially when he was scaring Jorgenson and "seemed to rise out of [his] own body" (208). He became Vietnam just like Mary did, although for vastly different reasons. His was one of revenge. In a strange way the revenge might have almost served to restore some sense of justice. In the war, nothing was ever just,and their was rarely any retribution. But O'Brien took his injury into his own hands to find justice.
   Jorgenson didn't mean to almost let O'Brien die. It was his first day and he had the completely understandable experience of being frozen with fear and confusion. That didn't take away his responsibility, though. From the stories my dad has told me, I think the war just didn't allow for compassion. When every little fault or moment of weakness could kill someone, it is impossible to give anyone much room for error. Even so, the thing that set O'Brien apart from Azar was that he still had a little bit of room for compassion.
  The camaraderie between Jorgenson and O'Brien at the end shows that the retribution in some strange way was acceptable. The may not have been friends, but they were almost closer than that. They shared some sort of secret common experience and acceptance.

Field Trip

   For me, Field Trip was sad for two reasons: one, because O'Brien was revisiting his not so pleasant past and Kiowa's death site, and two, because her daughter could never understand what he went through. Part of the reason that revisiting the field was sad was because it wasn't sad. it wasn't the big, scary, monster of a war that he had feared in his memories for so many years. That field had disappeared. Instead what he found was a peaceful, dry field. At least he found some small bit of closure by putting Kiowa's moccasins in the mud.
   What was more unsettling than O'Brien's revisitation of his past was his daughter Kathleen's innocent questions. She is the next generation, who doesn't know the pain and sacrifices that war entails, and therefore her generation is liable to make the same mistakes. Quite frankly, its more than a little bit depressing.
Both of these parts of the story show a world that had moved on from the war. This world is the same world that made Bowker commit suicide. The veterans are the only ones left behind as relics of the past.

In The Field

In The Field is another chapter back in Vietnam. In the beginning, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is very interesting. Actually, he is always rather interesting. From the beginning chapter to now he has been one of the more complex characters. Perhaps this is because he has to go through it alone. His fears, his crush on Martha, his guilt at the deaths of Lavender and Kiowa are all compounded by his isolation as head of the group. Even though all of them are isolated from their families and homes, at least the others have each other. As everyone else is combing the sh*t field for Kiowa's remains, Cross is left with the responsibility of attempting to come up with something to write to Kiowa's father. Although he almost the same age as the others and not much more experienced, he is forced into the role of a stoic adult. He cannot ever show his emotions good or bad, because his soldiers need him to be brave. He even has to look over all the young boys like the soldier standing listlessly alone in the field.
 The boy is sort of a lost puppy filled with remorse. To cope with his guilt at Kiowa's death, he searches desperately in the muck for the picture of his ex-girlfriend that caused his guilt in the first place. The picture is to him what the pantyhose were to Dobbins.
 The graphic description of Kiowa’s corpse is also disturbing. I can’t imagine looking at someone I know with their shoulder missing, covered in blood, mud, and bruises. It is like some horrific Halloween story. I simply cannot imagine how they coped with the unrelenting, enormous guilt, and grief, and loss, and fear, and exhaustion day after day.

Notes

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to ask questions in this format, but is this chapter real or a story? I'm asking because the chapter seems to be an explanation from the writer's perspective of some of the other chapters. That is perhaps what makes this chapter seem so sincere.
Bowker's suicide broke me up. Unfortunately this leads to more guilt for O'Brien. It seems as though no one involved can escape guilt from the blight upon humanity that is war. I wonder if the letter was real, because it was just so heartfelt. The way O'Brien had described Bowker enabled me able to picture him writing that letter so full of honesty and emotion. It it a true war story, because it is left unresolved. We can never know how Bowker would have reacted to O'Brien's unedited chapter.
   As I am pondering more over this chapter, I think the reason I like it is because it is almost like Rat Kiley's letter to Curt Lemon's sister. O'Brien is paying his respects to a friend by telling his story. He is telling a truth that he felt needed to be told, a truth that Bowker couldn't tell. Perhaps the stories themselves are their own resolution. Just telling them gives the teller and the characters the catharsis they need.

Speaking of Courage

Oh, poor Bowker! As hard as it is to live through something tramatic, it is a thousand times harder to live after it. To be inundated with both the past you left behind, and the future you could have had is simple awful. I love how he was able to tell time instinctually because it is so realistic for veterans. I know because to this day, 40 years after the war, my Dad can still wake up at an exact time to the minute without an alarm clock. The way he kick himself over his supposed mistakes is so understandable and yet so sad. He has to deal with the reality of how he feels about himself now, whereas he seems almost jealous of his dead friend Max Arnold, who is able to remain an eternal idealist. The chase of his old flame from high school who has since moved on without him shows how he is unable to cope with a world that has moved on. While his neighborhood may look the same as ever, time has predictably changed the people he had perhaps idealized to get through the war. I think his true courage is just coming back and trying to cope.

Stockings to Style

   It is a tad bit difficult to write on these chapters because they are so short and varied, but here it goes. The stockings chapter is so sympathetic. The stockings are his only constant physical reminder of home that gave him the strength to keep going. He may have been "like America itself", strong and stoic, but even he needed a little bit of hope to keep going.
   Church was a chapter that struck me in a completely different way: actually in two opposing ways. The idea of soldiers in a monastery, no matter how small and poor, deeply offends a part of me. I'm not quite sure why. I am agnostic, so usually religious sentiments are lost on me. Something about war, which is the worst aspects of mankind, seeping into a place of quiet purity and contemplation is deeply sacrilegious to me. I whole-heartedly agree with Kiowa. You shouldn't mess with sacred spaces. On a completely different note, the chapter oddly reminds me of my father. He was a soldier in Vietnam when he was my age, but he also later traveled to India and stayed in Hindu Himalayan monasteries. I have always known him as a very spiritual person,so the combination is eerie.
   The Man I Killed was a very strange chapter. I am a little bit confused about the point of view because it appears as though Tim O'Brien is the speaker the most of the time, but another unknown narrator is focused on the perspective of the man, which O'Brien couldn't have possibly known. The story itself is so sad and so graphic. I feel like the man is almost like Piggy from Lord of the Flies. He is so empathetic because he is apparently smart and sensitive but these qualities end up getting him killed by a cruel, unfair world. It is nice that his side was shown too, making him just as human and as real as Tim. Ambush goes more in depth to Tim's guilt. It must be horrible to know you are responsible for someone else's death.  (Oh and just by the way, the way that Tim lies his daughter about his past to comfort her is the same way that the hypothetical girlfriend of a soldier in our class discussion would lie about infidelity to comfort the soldier. Sometimes even falsehoods give people the hope and security that they need. Just sayin'.)
   I don't quite understand the Style chapter, but there is something beautiful about that little girl. Even though it is not the tradition reaction to the death of her family, her dance shows a strange sort of grace. Dobbins reaction to Azar was also quite beautiful, and almost made the immense amount of death even more tragic.