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.

Stockings to Style

 It’s not easy to fully write about these chapters because they were mostly all very short. The chapter Stockings was a sweet little story. It was cute how he wrapped his girlfriend’s stockings around his neck. It was his protection against evil and a good luck charm. Henry Dobbins was never wounded as long as he wore those stockings. He believed in their magic wish is what mad them work. Even after his girlfriend dumped him he still believed in their magic.

Church explores the platoon’s thoughts on religion and churches of course. They had set up at a pagoda that was tended by two peaceful monks. The monks didn’t oppse to them being there at all. They seemed to actually like their company. Kiowa thought it was wrong for them to be there. He may have thought it was disrespectable to God in a way. You know, bring in all those guns, objects meant for killing. I never would have thought that Dobbins had ever considered being a minister. It wasn’t the religion thing that interested him though, just the being nice part.

The way that a soldier kills a person makes a huge impact on them. Soldiers shoot and kill people all the time but it usually isn’t close up. They never really have to see the enemies face. If you don’t have to see their face then it changes the killing into something small. It’s almost like it never happened. In the chapters The Man I Killed and Ambush O’Brien had the unlucky opportunity of killing a man up close and personal. He had killed many before but not like this. I found it interesting how he repeatedly described how the man looked once he died. The star shaped hole, clean fingernails, thin eyebrows, and the freckles made O’Brien realize that this was a human being. He could have been a young man who probably had dreams and was someone who wasn’t fit for war. O’Brien could not stop staring. Maybe it was because he was a young just like O’Brien or because of the amount of gore. I think it was because O’Brien realized that he had just killed a young man who was fighting in a war he wanted no parts of, just like himself.  

Style was strange because of the little girl. He family was clearly dead her house in shambles. Yet, she was dancing with her eyes closed. She seemed to be at peace sort of. I think she was just in a state of shock and this is how she reacted. We all react to death differently. Some of us cry, others ignore it, and some are completely silent. Azar decide to act immaturely and mimic her dancing. Henry Dobbins obviously didn’t like that he was being disrespectful. I think Azar may have some sort of emotional damage, something that keeps him from identifying sad and emotional situations.

Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong

Mary Anne Bell would have to be the prime example of the terrible things that war can do to a person. The girl was only 17, fresh out of high school. She should’ve been enjoying her life as a teenager but instead she was exposed to the horrors of war by her boyfriend. I’m sure Fossie didn’t mean any harm but he should have really thought this through. I guess he thought she would be safe because they were living in a medical base. Not much happened around there. Everything started off pretty innocently.

Mary and Fossie flirted and giggled and Mary lifted everyone’s morale. I’m sure she did since she was the only girl in the camp and was quite attractive. Mary was also curious and well they say curiosity killed the cat. She would ask questions about weapons, grenades, and the villages. She just wanted to learn. She wasn’t even grossed out by the casualties that came in. The blood and gore didn’t seem to bother her at all. May be she was already becoming desensitized. These were the first signs of her dramatic change, a warning.

She cut her hair, no more makeup, hygiene was of no importance, and she abandoned her cute clothes. She learned how to shoot a gun and turned out to be really good at it. She gained confidence and voiced her opinion on things. Her muscles became more firm, her voice a bit lower. Her mannerisms became less womanly and more like a soldier’s. Then she disappeared on night only for Fossie to find out she was with the Green Berets. She had been out on an ambush all night. That was too much for Fossie to handle. He put his foot down, made her clean herself up, and put on her normal clothes. He was trying to force everything to be normal again.

She disappeared again for about three weeks. When she was finally found, she wasn’t Mary Anne Bell anymore. She was a hardened killer with human tongues around her neck and smile on her lips. Mary Anne was gone forever mentally and eventually physically. Vietnam swallowed her up and turned her into a killer. It didn’t even matter that she was a girl.

How To Tell a True War Story

Rat Kiley and Curt Lemon were practically inseparable. They were more like kids playing soldier in their backyard than two young men trying to survive a grizzly war. I suppose that is why Rat felt he had to write a letter to Curt’s sister. I guess that’s why he called her a dumb cooze when she didn’t respond. He must’ve been hurt, I would imagine so. She could have at least responded to the letter. He poured his heart in soul into to it and she just ignored him. Maybe she was too heartbroken to write back or upset. Still some kind of thank you would have been nice.

A true war story never has any morals and if it doesn’t then it isn’t true. If it sounds completely believable and normal then it isn’t true. A true war story has no moral and sounds completely crazy but that is how you know it’s true.  So I guess that makes the story of the patrol that heard all those spooky sounds true. That one does seem unbelievable but if you consider the setting they were in, it’s kind of believable. Just think about it. Sometimes when you’re at home by yourself at night you can get spooked a little.  This can happen especially if you’ve just watched a scary movie or if it’s one of those creepy quiet nights. You start hear sounds or did you just imagine them? Fear has a funny way of warping our sense of reality.

So maybe the patrol really did hear all the sounds they thought they heard. It was all caused by fear and being in those dark mountains. A true war story also doesn’t have to have a point. The tree that Curt Lemon’s insides were hanging form was jokingly called “Lemon Tree”. Gross, right?? You ask yourself what was the point of it. There isn’t one because it’s just something that happened. I still am confused about what are the criteria for a true war story.

Enemies/Friends

 War has an odd way of creating relationships between people. It also creates paranoia and fear. Jensen’s fear of Strunk may have been a tinged with paranoia but it was also rational.   Jensen punched the guy in the face, broke his nose. Not exactly a smart idea to go around punching people in the face who also have guns. I’m sure that in a normal setting the situation would have been done with it. Vietnam is not a normal setting by a long shot. They were in a strange land, in a dark jungle full of strange sounds and waiting enemies. Strunk never make any threats or hinted at any signs of revenge. Strunk was silent and maybe that was what drove Jensen crazy. He had no idea if he was still mad or plotting something. He could only wonder. Jensen broke his own nose as a way to get even. Maybe it was all a part of Strunk’s strategy the whole time.

It’s odd how such an event can bring two people closer together. They became almost like best friends. They began protecting each other and even made a contract. They promised to end it if one of them got injured really badly. I guess that sounded macho to them or something. When Strunk got half of his leg blown off he wimped out on their agreement. He begs Jensen not to kill and Jensen complies but Strunk dies anyway in the helicopter. Poor guy never even got to make it home. I don’t think Jensen really had it in him to kill Strunk anyway. That would have been too personal, too real.

On the Rainy River

Tim O’ Brien should have never been drafted. He had just graduated from college, he was too young, too nice, and he had received a scholarship for Harvard. He was just too normal, too human to be a soldier. He certainly wasn’t the soldier type considering that he got queasy at the sight of blood. He also strongly opposed the war and I think you shouldn’t have to fight for something you are opposed to. Of course this is just my personal opinion. O’Brien has a good reason for not supporting this war though. No one really even knew what this war was truly about. They didn’t even know what they were fighting for. All they knew was that they had to kill in order to survive. Killing in order to survive is such a primal instinct. I think that is why the men of this war developed so many mental and emotional issues.

Personally, I don’t think O’Brien was cowardly for wanting to escape to Canada. If I were in his same situation I would have considered the same option. The only difference is that I would have probably actually gone through with it. The way of thinking was different back then though. He would have been considered a coward if he didn’t go. How can anyone judge him when it wasn’t their lives that were on the line? I really think he went through with it because of the old man and the image he saw at the river. The old man never said much but he knew what Tim was planning. Tim knew that he knew. The way that Elroy simply looked at him and his silence was enough to make Tim head to war. Heading to war was not what he wanted to do and he abandoned his beliefs by doing that. Doesn’t that still make him a coward in a way?