The Lives of the Dead

The Lives of the Dead taught me a lot. So we all know that death sucks. Everyone knows that and there’s not much you can do about that. Are you really dead after you die? Well physically you are but what about the memory of you?  Your memory still goes on because people won’t let that part of you die. You can’t really die if you are never forgotten. Your loved ones will continue to tell stories about you. Once someone tells a story about you, you are alive once again. You are alive in someone’s mind. Just like Linda was in O’Brien’s mind. She had died physically a long time ago but she was still alive in his mind. In his mind she didn’t have cancer anymore, she was healthy, and her hair had grown back completely.

 Once you are alive you can never be dead because you have left your imprint in people’s minds. The mind has the ability to create believable situations. It can create dreams that seem so real that you think they are. O’Brien’s dreams of Linda were real to him so that meant she was too. She had never really left him. Her spirit was still floating around him and telling him not to cry. It was his way of coping with her physical death. So my point is that we don’t die at all. You are just waiting for someone to remember you again. When that happens you are free to frolic and play just like you used too. With the people who loved you the most.

Night Life

This chapter reminds me of why I still have a fear of the dark. Well not the dark exactly but I mean like when its pitch black. I can’t even take it when I’m in my house at night. I always have to keep the hallway or bathroom light on. I f I don’t I become paranoid like Rat Kiley. I begin things and see shadows move but that’s just in my house. Rat was out there in the freaking jungle with bugs, animals, and nature. Nature can be pretty scary. It can be unpredictable and when you’re wandering a jungle in the pitch black dark of night, your nightmares became real. Rat said he heard the bugs talking to him. They were out to get him. Sanders said that the monkeys spoke death-chatter and that the night had its own voice. No sane person should have to go through such torture.

Humans are supposed to sleep at night and not wander the darkness like some nocturnal owl. We’re not made for that Rat certainly wasn’t. He just couldn’t take it anymore. He had seen too many bodies, too much blood, and too much gore. The way that Rat Kiley deals with injuries and bodies is different than a doctor. A doctor isn’t there when a person gets stabbed, shot, or blown up. A doctor only sees the after effects and deals with that. See it’s different for Rat because he was there when all that stuff happened to people. After a while those images build up in your head. Rat just couldn’t shake it. He was always seeing his friends dead and himself in his dead. Thoughts like that will mess you up. So I don’t blame Rat for shooting himself in the foot, no one did. Everyone knew that he had seen too much and it was better if he left.

The Ghost Soldiers

I suppose that O’Brien has a good reason to hate Jorgenson. The guy nearly killed him and caused a part of his butt to rot away. How do you let something like that go? How do you apologize for it? O’Brien couldn’t lay on his back, sit, and was the subject of jokes around the battalion supply section. He had to walk around with big yellow splotches on his pants. I would hate Jorgenson too if that happened to me. That’s just a one sided view of the situation though. Jorgenson was practically brand new. He had reason to be scared and freeze up. It was a moment of weakness, a moment of fear. In a war there isn’t room for mistakes though. Small little mistakes can be the difference between life and death which ended up being Jorgenson’s dilemma.

So yeah, Jorgenson was wrong for what he did but things happen. O’Brien became so consumed with anger and hatred that he couldn’t even see Jorgenson’s side of the situation. All O’Brien wanted was sweet, sweet revenge. He didn’t have the heart to do it himself though. He enlisted the help of Azar. I don’t think it’s a good idea to enlist the help of a emotionally disturbed person like him. O’Brien says he has a better sense of “justice”. I think he just asked him because Azar was a prankster and would go to any lengths to have a little fun. It’s sad to see someone be that consumed with the thoughts of revenge. By the time that O’Brien realized the prank had gone on long enough, it was too late. Azar was too riled up and determined to finish what he started. Lucky for O’Brien that Jorgenson realized what had been going on.

Good Form/Field Trip

Just when I thought I have everything figured out, turns out I don’t. It’s hard to tell what is true is this book. The line between fact and fiction is blurred. Did O’Brien really kill a man? I’m not sure what to think anymore because of the things that he says. Is this in reference to O’Brien the character or O’Brien the writer? I think their stories are intertwined. O’Brien really needs to just be straightforward with his stories. He makes my poor brain hurt.

O’Brien waited twenty years to visit Vietnam. Twenty years to take care of unfinished business. Twenty years to give Kiowa a proper goodbye. I wonder why he waited so long.  He brought his little girl along because he needed her to see what he saw. I think he had a tiny bit of hope that she would understand. Of course she didn’t understand, she’s just a child. It takes a certain amount of courage to come back to a place that he despised. It was a place where so many friends died.

O’Brien was really dedicated to his friend Kiowa. I think he also did this to help himself move on. The war never really leaves a person. O’Brien would still wake up with images of what had happened all those years ago. The way Kiowa died would never be right. O’Brien even had Kiowa’s old moccasins and dropped them in the spot where Kiowa probably died. It was his last goodbye to him and that river. It was finally the end of the war for both of them.

In the Field

Why is a body important after the person is dead? What is its significance? The person is already dead so why does it matter where they are buried? Well I certainly don’t know the answer to any of those questions but it makes you think. It has to mean something because Jimmy Cross issued a search for Kiowa’s body. He would not let a good Baptist man like him stay buried in crap. Religion must make a difference then. I think it is the idea of just leaving someone in such a nasty situation is what mattered to them.

If there was anyone to blame for Kiowa’s death it was Jimmy Cross. He knew that it was a bad spot to set up camp, he knew. He should’ve used his better judgment and ignored orders. What’s the worst that could happen? They’ve already been through the worst so I’m pretty sure he could have withstood some higher-up yelling at him. Jimmy Cross didn’t want to be in the war anyway. Like so many others that were around, his heart wasn’t in it. They found Kiowa’s body and after much difficulty they uncovered it. They sent it on its way to wherever bodies end up in Vietnam. They were thankful that it wasn’t them that had been in such a horrible situation. Cross didn’t seem to be all that upset by the fact he was responsible for all this. I thought that was a bit strange. As a Lieutenant, Cross was responsible for all his men. He’d be a wreck if he got all bent out of shape about every one of them that was killed.  He had to remain sane and to do that he couldn’t let things get to him like that.

Notes

There isn’t much to say about Notes. It provides a back story on Speaking of Courage. Norman Bowker could not ease back into society after the war. It was too difficult for him. The person that he was before he joined the war was gone. That person killed in Vietnam, went AWOL, MIA I guess. Bowker couldn’t hold a steady job or keep himself occupied. It was like he was just drifting in this world. He couldn’t figure out what to do with his self. How could he? He had been killing people for what seemed like forever. He had no purpose now and he wanted people to know that. He wanted O’Brien to write about a horrible experience that one soldier had that kept him from moving on. If you can’t move on then what do you do with yourself? Norman Bowker committed suicide, didn’t tell anyone what he was planning, no suicide note. I think he didn’t want to give anyone a chance to save him since he couldn’t save Kiowa. This was his way of feeling better about it.

Speaking of Courage

This chapter made me sad and made me not want to read anymore of the book. Kiowa didn’t deserve to die and certainly not in that way. Kiowa was a good person, he didn’t swear much, and he was generally nice. I mean no one really deserves to die but he definitely didn’t. He was sucked down into a field full of crap. Could you imagine a worst death?? Imagine the smell, the putrid stink of human feces sucking you down. It would fill your, nose, you ears, and your mouth. Norman Bowker blamed himself because he could’ve saved him, maybe.

It’s a horrible feeling to go through life always wondering “what if”. It’s horrible because you can’t go back in time and changed what happened. You always wonder what if, what if, what if. What if I hadn’t let go of Kiowa? That’s what Norman Bowker was wondering. It could have been the bravest thing he had ever done but he let go. He had too because it was already too late. The gunk was too thick and the rain was too heavy. They were in a sinkhole, a death trap.

If Norman Bowker hadn’t let go of Kiowa he would have been a hero, or not. All we can do is speculate because there will never be a clear answer. Bowker could have also got sucked down with him and died, or not. See how frustrating a “what if” situation can be? Bowker would never stop wondering and thinking about that night. Like he said, he almost had gotten the Silver Star, almost.