The image of children fighting the
Vietnam War is heavily emphasized throughout The Things They Carried. O’Brien recalls “The average age in our
platoon, I’d guess, was nineteen or twenty...there was a childlike exuberance
to it all, lots of pranks and horseplay. Like when Azar blew away Ted Lavender’s
puppy. ‘What’s everybody so upset about?’ Azar said. ‘I mean, Christ, I’m just
a boy.’” (pg. 35) This short excerpt
is one of the most poignant illustrations of the fact that the soldiers were
mere children. Azar, with childlike innocence cries out for forgiveness on the
grounds that he didn't know any better due to his age. The most disturbing
thought is that this boy, and others like him, were sent out to war with
weapons and orders to kill but lacked the simple maturity of judgment to keep
from killing a beloved pet. Another haunting example of childhood on the warfront
is Henry Dobbins and his security blanket stockings. The stockings seem for a
while to simply be an odd lucky charm from his girl, but it becomes clear that
they are much more when Dobbins is said to have “slept with the stockings up
against his face, the way an infant sleeps with a flannel blanket” (pg. 111).
This shows Dobbins’ lack of emotional maturity as he is unable to face the war
without the coping mechanism of his ‘blanket.’
In neither
of these instances was a human life lost or endangered by immaturity, but, with
the case of Curt Lemon, the reader learns that childishness can in fact lead
death. Curt and Rat were playing a game in the jungle when Curt stepped in a booby
trap and was killed. “They didn't understand about the spookiness. They were
kids; they just didn't know.” (pg. 66) With childlike naivete and adolescent
fearlessness, the two boys never thought that their play might lead to consequence
although they lived in a world of violence. The fact that the boys were so
young, then, actually allowed them to take risks that older more calculated and
developed thinkers would have known better than to take. By this thinking, is
it critical that wars be fought with such uninhibited young men? Is this an
exploitation of our youth? Definitely. But as long as there have been wars,
there have been boy soldiers, and this will sadly continue.
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ReplyDeleteI think this is a really good point relating to our conversation in class yesterday. One thing we debated was whether or not the stories matter or if the content that evokes the emotion in the readers is what is more important. I think the emphasis on the boys age is so evocative because these "boys" are just about the same age as us. Although there is no possible way we could ever relate to being in combat, we can relate to being young and immature and naive. The fact that O'Brien emphasizes their playfulness exaggerates a sense of innocence which also makes us feel empathetic for the young characters.
ReplyDeleteI think the trinkets that the various soldiers carry with them also signify their lack of maturity. It's not like they are doing anything wrong in particular or acting extremely foolish, but their childish actions just emphasizes their young age. This is a powerful image seen over and over in the text which makes the readers feel that much more sympathetic.
It really is disturbing to read about soldiers no older than us. Great example about the dog, but I'm not sure if I agree about the whole good luck charm issue. I don't think of that as childish, but as a side effect of human nature. In a place as intensely stressful as Vietnam, I don't doubt that everyone, regardless of mental maturity, would find some sort of coping mechanism. When everything is unpredictable, people will try to create order and stability out of anything.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like everything that is brought up regarding this book evokes the situation in Israel and my military service. For me it’s natural to read about young soldiers, and less disturbing than I would have wanted it to be, because it implies that I’m used to it and am accepting it as a necessity of reality, as a truth of life.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with Lindsey that finding comfort in a “childish” object, or behaving in a “childish” manner, does not imply of a lack of capacity to be a soldier, at least not as a generalization. As demonstrated in this book, real or not (though I believe some version of it is true to someone), soldiers witness and experience difficulties and “war stories,” and have to carry their memories with them. This requires some sort of an outlet, whether it is playing around, sleeping with stockings that evoke memories from home, or abusing an animal (which I’m definitely not saying is right, but.) The last point I want to make is that O’Brien (both of them) chose to portray the characters as “childish”. He chose to address this because it relates to the bigger issue that Abigail brought up in her post “But as long as there have been wars, there have been boy [and girl] soldiers.”