Friday, February 20, 2009

ghost soldiers

I just wanted to post that I thought that "ghost soldiers" was a fun chapter mixed in with all the emotional ones. It shows that these guys are just young men having some fun like guys would be doing back at home...just in a jungle instead of in the suburbs. haha.
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2 comments:

  1. EmilyFebruary 22, 2009 at 6:12 PM

    Really? I was kind of troubled by this chapter. I think it had a lot to say about blame. The medic was just this kid who had never seen any kind of war before, and he sort of froze, but O'Brien, who doesn't want to be in this war anyway, obviously needs someone to blame for his wound. I thought it funny that he doesn't blame the VC, or the soldier who shot him, or the war itself, he chooses to put all of his hurt on young Jorgenson, an American boy just like him, who was afraid of the war just as O'Brien was. At the same time, O'Brien seems to also be blaming Jorgenson for his not being in the war anymore. It was because of Jorgenson's foul up that O'Brien can't be a soldier anymore and he is taken out of the field. So in that way, maybe Jorgenson saves O'Brien's life, but O'Brien doesn't see it that way. He misses being in the field, and the brotherhood that came with it. It's like he doesn't want to be kicked out of this war he never wanted to be in in the first place.

    While Azar is an asshole pretty consistently throughout the book, I think what he says to O'Brien is really important in setting the new tone of mind in O'Brien... showing the change from in the field to man who used to be a soldier: "You dig playing war, right? That's all this is. A cute little backyard war game. Brings back memories, I bet - those happy soldiering days. Except now you're a has-been. One of those American Legion types, guys who like to dress up in a nifty uniform and go out and play at it. Pitiful. It was me, I'd rather get my ass blown away for real."

    For me, "Ghost Soldiers" is the chapter that transitions O'Brien from the war, to after the war. It's also the farthest chronological point we hear about O'Brien being in Vietnam.

    "Ghost Soldiers" definitively had a different feel than the rest of the book, but I disliked it, because it was so filled with petty revenge, and wasted energies torturing the people that "are on your side." It also showed a dark side in O'Brien's character we hadn't seen before and I didn't want to see in him.

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  2. AnonymousFebruary 22, 2009 at 10:23 PM

    I can see and understand your reading. I think I thought that the first time that I read it too because it is very disturbing that he puts so much effort into torturing him and also scary the amount of anger that he has toward the medic. I guess when I think "oh they were just having fun" is when Jorgenson yells O'brien's name out because he knows it's him. I've seen my young man guy friends do weird stuff like this to each other for shits and giggles. I do agree with you though that this gives a different side of O'brien that we don't see in the book prior to this chapter.

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