Bradley Blizzard
Tri. II Exam
February 26, 2013
Option II: The Men I Ambushed
Tim O'Brien, the author of "The Things They Carried, obsesses about his memories from his own experience in Vietnam. Though O'Brien contradicted his ability to tell stories in "To Tell A True War Story", his ability to remember most (if not all) events from the war is not very common due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD] among veterans. Without leaving out any detail, O'Brien tries to explain his dramatic experiences to his daughter, Kathleen, in the story "Ambush." In the story "The Man I Killed," O'Brien creates a storyline to the young man who was blown up by O'Brien's grenade. Putting a name to the man's obliterated face was important to O'Brien, even though members of his platoon were acting "insensitive" towards the bloody killing.
"Someday, I hope, she'll ask again. But here I want to pretend she's a grown-up." O'Brien explained, "I want to tell her exactly what happened, or what I remember happening, and then I want to say to her that as a little girl she was absolutely right. This is why I keep writing war stories:" In the beginning of "Ambush," O'Brien's daughter Kathleen is too young to understand the struggle which her father encountered during the war. In his attempt to explain to her his entire story of My Khe, O'Brien reinvents the image in his head of when his platoon moved into the ambush site. Speaking in the first person, the overwhelmed veteran described how he noticed a young soldier come out of the fog on the sketchy trail. Wearing an ammunition belt, the soldier steadily walked down the trail on his sandals before noticing a grenade bounce in front of him. He then dropped his weapon and began to sprint away from the exploding metal while covering his head. Boom! He was blown up while O'Brien began to feel guilt. Throughout the story, O'Brien takes direct responsibility for the death. Whereas he avoids confronting the boy's death directly in "The Man I Killed."
While describing the gruesome death of the boy who O'Brien killed, he began to create a background story for what he thinks the boy's life was like before the war. He suddenly transformed from an opposing soldier to a young boy. O'Brien felt a need to come to terms with death, he began to reflect on the boys life which he ended. While observing the boy's "untouched" nose, O'Brien couldn't keep his eyes off of him. He also began to imagine that the boy studied at the University of Saigon in 1964. Obsessing over his eye that looks like a star-shaped hole, Kiowa insists that the company will move out before covering the body. He says that O'Brien seems to be feeling better, but will only talk about the boy's eye and the rest of the dead body. Coming to grips with the young boy who he killed was not easy for O'Brien and still is not to this day. "Later, Kiowa said, 'I'm serious. Nothing anybody could do. Come on, Tim, stop staring."
Though Tim has made his first enemy kill known, which might be good news to the U.S Army, he continues to be forever scarred by the life he has taken. He remembers details from the day, which has haunted him since. The memories have gotten inside his head so much that he begins to "see things differently." When an event, like this one, causes emotional harm, it is hard for one not to let the story get the best of them. Yes, killing is never a good idea to think about, but O'Brien's head is so emotionally damaged that whatever he thinks even happened that day, must be true in his mind. It is common that soldiers suffer from PTSD when there service time is up, I believe that it is then the governments responsibility to protect and help those veterans who need it. They have fought and risked their lives for their nations freedom, it is only right that they receive treatment.
Little do I know about the topic of putting myself into someones shoes who has killed another, I believe that Tim's reflections on the war are not something that his family should be necessarily worried about. Yes, Tim may be reflecting on negative memories, but he's living in a mind set that will not let him forget about what he has done. In the stories "Ambush" and "The Man I Killed," O'Brien describes his first killing experience and how he deals with this mind set of killings. In "The Man I Killed," he distances away from the solider while telling his story, mostly because of his daughter, Kathleen.
