When I suggested this book I forgot that it was about the Vietnam War. I just vaguely remembered reading it in high school and didn't recall much about it. In fact, I couldn't even recall if I had liked it. When I found that it was about war I was certain that I had hated it, but I still don't remember. Now I think it's the greatest book about war I have ever read (but that could be because it may be the only).
I think the author, Tim O'Brien, paints a reality of war that may be unheard of to those who have never participated in or have never studied war in much detail. I can give you dates and names of famous battles, but I have never studied any war in depth, and as I read the book I was accompanied with intense, real-life war dreams. I've never been a fan of war, let alone have ever participated in one, but I can only imagine what war may be like by the quality of my dreams. It was quite the trip.
The book touched on the turmoil behind the young men who went off to fight, barely in or out of college, barely on their own and barely adults. I can't imagine what it would be like to be drafted and I probably won't ever get the chance to know given current laws, but it made me feel bad that this was something only young men have to face. I'm not concerned about the sexism in the law, but rather the mentality of either having to flee the country to not participate in something of which you don't believe or giving into your embarrassment going to fight in the war (read page 59 for more details). I don't really want the responsibility of making that decision, but I do think it's a little unfair to give it to only one party. I think I would end up reacting like this character:
I remember Mitchell Sanders sitting quietly in the shade of an old banyan tree, He was using a thumbnail to pry off the body lice, working slowly, carefully depositing the lice in a blue USO envelope. His eyes were tired. It had been a long two weeks in the bush. After an hour or so he sealed up the envelope, wrote FREE in the upper right-hand corner, and addressed it to his draft board in Ohio. (31)I don't know for sure, but I think I'm bratty enough to do that.
In all, I definitely recommend this book. It's well-written and engages you. I'll leave you with this philosophical passage that I've enjoyed pondering.
To generalize about war is like generalizing about peace. Almost everything is true. Almost nothing is true. At its core, perhaps, war is just another name for death, and yet any soldier will tell you, if he tells the truth, that proximity to death brings with it a corresponding proximity to life. After a firefight, there is always the immense pleasure of aliveness. The trees are alive. The grass, the soil-- everything. All around you things are purely living, and you among them, and the aliveness makes you tremble. You feel an intense, out-of-the-skin awareness of your living self--your truest self, the human being you want to be and then become by the force of wanting it. In the midst of evil you want to be a good man. You want decency. You want justice and courtesy and human concord, things you never knew you wanted. There is kind of largeness to it, a kind of godliness. Though it's odd, you're never more alive than when you're almost dead. You recognize what's valuable. Freshly, as if for the first time, you love what's best in yourself and in the world, all that might be lost. (81)
