I Was A Coward- I Went to the War

Courage is like an inheritance. True. We keep it locked up inside until those crucial moments where life demands more from us than we are typically used to. Aside from all this, fear is pint up inside in a similar way. It leaks out of people almost simultaneously with courage. Also true.

O'Brien wanted us to feel his guilt, his fear, his so-called cowardice. He uses what I believe is an antithesis on page 38 when saying that "certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons;" clearly he understood there was no certainty in the Vietnam War, or any war for that matter.

I thought the gross descriptions of the pig "Declotter" job built up to the parallelism of O'Brien's paralyzing choice towards "slaughtery" if he chose to accept the draft notice on page 41. We feel his frustration with his home town as he fears being judged, so he condemns them by saying, "They didn't know history..." (page 43). By combing all of the townspeople into a common pronoun "them," O'Brien uses a synecdoche to say that the people as a group are against him.

If I can clearly recall back to sophomore year, one of the stages in the hero cycle was flight. This is exactly the approach O'Brien took when he received the draft notice, until he came across the "hero of his life," Elroy Berdahl (pages 44-45). Berdahl taught him with few words in six days that absence of fear does not make one strong, for the only conclusion O'Brien left us with at the end of the chapter was that he "would not be brave." He let embarrassment of having to face all the people in his life make the decision for him to submit himself into the war. How often are we too pressured into a route we're not too fond of due to the driving force of peer pressure. Leaving us with a paradox, O'Brien tells us of his drive home, "... and then to Vietnam, where [he] was a soldier, and then home again. [He] survived but it's not a happy ending. [He] was a coward. [He] went to war" (page 58). 'Coward' and 'war' just don't mix in my mind.

Spin

O'Brien started out the chapter "Spin" with an edge of sarcasm. He said that "war wasn't all terror and violence. Sometimes things could almost get sweet (page 30)," and then jumped immediately into a story about a kid that was "lucky" because he only get one leg shot off. The cruel reality of war shines through this dark humor. By using a simple simile by comparing war to a ping pong ball, O'Brien adds the crazy concept that war is almost treated as a game. He furthers this illusion by explaining Norman Bowker's and Henry Dobbins' nightly checkers ritual (page 31); however, he "spins" the concept by saying that with checkers there is actually visible enemy lines, knowledge of one's position, and a winner and loser, things that the Vietnam War clearly lacked.

When O'Brien described the sense of boredom felt by those not "humping" but waiting, I could almost see the soldiers twitching with anxiety and anticipation about what would come next. Out there in the jungle with no distinct path or purpose, they must have had a lot of time to ponder the absence of loved ones, entertainment, and home. I don't get bored very easily; I try to make my own fun or take in my surroundings, but I know I'd probably go crazy living out there in a constant state of reminding myself to just relax.

O'Brien repeats several times throughout the novel that he's "forty-three years old" and "still writing war stories" (page 31 & 33). He seems to rely on this release of emotion, or catharsis, to execute his purpose for writing. He goes on to say, "the thing about remembering is that you don't forget" (page 33), speaking directly to his reader, explaining this is the only way he can tell the world.