Ghosts

In the jungle of Vietnam, many lines are blurred.  The lines between good and bad, friends and enemies, and reality and imagination become unclear.  O’Brien explains, “We called the enemy ghosts (202)”.  I’m not entirely sure what enemy O’Brien is referring to, though.  Certainly he could mean the Viet Cong soldiers that the men are actually fighting.  But perhaps he means something quite different; maybe he is saying that ghosts themselves are the enemies.  Throughout the novel, O’Brien repeatedly mentions the spiritual quality of the jungle and mountains, how the wilderness will draw you in and terrify you at the same time.  Some soldiers may fear actual ghosts, the white hooded figures like the one O’Brien attempted to scare Jorgenson with.  But I think the real enemy, the thing that soldiers fear the most, are the ghosts in their heads.  These are the kind of ghosts that haunt their dreams and their waking thoughts, ghosts that make them doubt their eyes, hear voices in the trees, and imagine their friends’ brutal deaths.  These ghosts, the ghosts that take away a soldier’s sanity and cause him to lose his grip on reality, are the true enemies.  But how can a soldier fight the ghosts in his head when he is surrounded by violence, death, heartbreak, loneliness, guilt and so many other demons? How can he beat his greatest enemy if it resides within the confines of his own mind?