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.