Memoir, not fiction. Youth and inexperience, as in Keith Douglas’s Alamein to Zem Zem, give the writing distinction and immediacy.

Tim O’Brien is a Vietnam veteran who writes autobiographical accounts of his experiences in the war. These stories range from philosophical to downright depressing and nothing incompasses this more than this book. Being autobiographical, the story is told from the point of view of O’Brien himself. This structure was probably one of the stronger parts of the book.

The way O’Brien bounces back from his quiet, monotonous home life to getting drafted and sent off to bootcamp in the early parts of the book to showcasing how war can go from quiet and boring to overwhelming and deadly to the later parts shows perfectly the thought process and general atmosphere of a warzone. Especially one like the jungles of Vietnam. "With a hangover and with fear, it is difficult to put a helmet on your head."(134)

O’Brien goes through the entire process of getting drafted, boot camp, going to Vietnam, and what exactly went down. Throughout that time, we meet a whole cast of characters, some friends, some regular people, and a lot of bad, unlikeable people. There's a boorish, rude drill sergeant who O’Brien despises, and multiple grunt, dull men that he has for squadmates. This is where one of the flaws of the book shines, in my opinion. O’Brien seems to lack perspective of any kind, reducing soldiers down to bad people, idiots, average joes or a person O’Brien can get along with it. “Courage is nothing to laugh at, not if it is proper courage and exercised by men who know what they do is proper. Proper courage is wise courage. It's acting wisely, acting wisely when fear would have a man act otherwise. It is the endurance of the soul in spite of fear - wisely.” (104)


However, O’Brien still remains to be a likeable character to be put in the point of view in. He is likeable, idealistic and eventually goes through his own arc that changes him, and we get to feel and understand all of it, It’s almost like we’re growing through O’Brien, like we are in his boots. This is one of the best parts of the book in my opinion. "It's sad when you learn you're not much of a hero." (119)

The same structure remains consistent throughout. It goes through different important events in a usually non-linear pattern. It cuts back between different ‘missions’ and the time spent between said missions. It’s structure like this that emphasises the dull, but frighteningly erratic behavior of a life during wartime. It’s structure like this that really makes this book a unique war book in my opinion. "Do dreams offer lessons? Do nightmares have themes, do we awaken and analyze them and live our lives and advise others as a result? Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories.” (182)

I think if it was a more dry, standard retelling of an account in Vietnam, this would not of been as good and unique. The way O’Brien shows off the war in a very opinionated and ‘boots-on-the-ground’ kind of way really makes it.

In conclusion, I think If I Die In a Combat Zone is a must-read for any fans of wartime books, such as All Quiet on The Western Front, or We Were Soldiers Once… and Young. His treatment of certain characters might get irritating, but that’s just one of the few flaws in this intense, but genuine war drama.

O'Brien tries to write against war, but his version of "war is evil" starts and ends with the unnecessary deaths of American soldiers. He writes that the war in Vietnam was evil because he did not understand it and was forced to fight regardless. He writes at length about his desire to have fought in a war he thinks was "right," like WWII. He does not write about dead Vietnamese people except as set dressing for his moral self-inspection.

There are 3 quite good stories in this book: "Wise Endurance," "Courage Is A Certain Kind of Persevering," and "Don't I Know You?" Skip the rest; you won't miss much.

I am listening to this book in the audible version over 12 years after I first read it, and I am bumping it up an additional star after experiencing it again. I am not quite sure why I am thinking. It was a better book than I thought. It was the first time. But I do know that as I listened to the beginning of the book, as the author was struggling with the decision of whether he was going to allow himself to be drafted And sent to Vietnam that I thought I was identifying very closely with his struggle. I ended up not going to Vietnam, because I became the father of my first son, and therefore obtained a additional exemption from the draft. It is one of those situations where I will never know what I would’ve done, if I would have actually been drafted. In retrospect, I imagined that I would have gone to Canada or to jail but of course I am not certain of that because I never faced that ultimate decision.

The author spent a good deal of his time in Vietnam, in the same area, where the My Lai incident occurred, although he was there after that famous incident. His description of events gives a good deal of strangely similar experiences to those presented as reasons why soldiers at that time reacted violently against many apparently non-combatant people in Vietnam.

The audible version that I listened to includes a interview with the author about 40 years after the book was first published.
———————————
Tim O’Brien’s war story could have been me. A 1968 college graduate, Tim accepts being drafted in spite of his opposition to the war. He goes to basic training then infantry training, decides to desert to Sweden when it is clear that he is headed for Vietnam, changes his mind mid-desertion and goes off to war. As they say, the rest is historical fiction.

Can the foot soldier teach anything about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories.

This war story is If I Die in a Combat Zone Box Me Up and Ship Me Home, lines from a training marching cadence. He tells a compelling story when he isn’t trying to quote Socrates or Plato or to philosophize about courage. Regarding courage, I suggest skipping chapter 16 where he says, “Whatever it is, soldiering in a war is something that makes a fellow think about courage, makes a man wonder what it is and if he has it.” And “I thought about courage off and on for the rest of my tour in Vietnam.” There is plenty to think about in his descriptive writing.

After the requisite experiences of friends being wasted or losing arms and legs, O’Brien tells about how most soldiers in the Vietnam war zones, including him, worked hard to be transferred to the rear to a desk job.(1) He succeeded and spent the last months of his 365 days in Vietnam processing casualty reports and writing a book.

Although he was not in Vietnam until a year after My Lai (2), the publicity and investigations were in full bloom during his time in the rear. He relates his experiences with one of the officers managing the army spin of the incident. The fictional character Major Callicles represents the old guard of the military whereas O’Brien is the new guard. The line differentiating war and war crimes (3) is as muddy as a rice paddy.

“Now look here, damn it, the distinction is between war and peace,” Callicles said. “This here is war. You know about war? What you do is kill. The bomber pilot fries some civilians – he doesn’t see it maybe, but he damn well knows it. Sure, so he just flies out and drops his load and flies back, gets a beer and sees a movie.” .

Spin doctors have gotten a lot more skillful in the ensuing years and wars. Regrettably, they have had plenty of practice. And the fact that Callicles is the name of a character in one of Plato’s Dialogues must have some relationship to the selection of the name by O’Brien.

My next Tim O’Brien book will be his novel In the Lake of the Woods. I just requested a copy through GR Bookswap. I am also intrigued by the book A Trauma Artist Tim O'Brien and the Fiction of Vietnam.

Footnotes:

(1) O'Brien: “GIs use a thousand strategies to get into the rear. Some men simply shoot themselves in the feet or fingers, careful to mash only an inch or so of bone."

(2) Callicles: “We’re trying to win a war here, and, Jesus, what the hell do you think war is? Don’t you think some civilians get killed? You ever been to My Lai? Well, I’ll tell you, those civilians – you call them civilians – they kill American GIs. They plant mines and spy and snipe and kill us. Sure, you all print color pictures of dead little boys, but the live ones – take pictures of the live ones digging holes for mines.”

(3) Callicles: “There’s a billion stinking My Lai 4s, and they put the finger on us.”

Made my blood boil, as intended

4/5

In my personal opinion, this novel far bypasses The Things They Carried and Going After Cacciato. Tim O'Brien fully dives into the mind of a 'Nam G.I. He tells the story from behind the reticle of the rifle, as he and Alpha Company follow the footsteps of Captain Johansen. Not only does the reader get a understanding of the type of respect some men received, but better yet the story shows the heroicism that these men presented. This is not to say that the atrocities his fellow infantrymen committed were not present as well, but it shows the duality of war. How Vietnam was barely objective based, and seemed more as a mission of total destruction. How they would massacre villages in the name of war, slaughter innocents and pillage goods, with no repercussion at all. A study from Brittanica states that over 2 million innocent Vietnamese people lost their life in the war, and yet the Army only criminally charged 57 men. In the time that this book was published, O'Brien was completely countering the American norm of 'aiding foreign nations to stop the spread of communism'. His writing shows how this war was a bloody massacre, and how their feet on the ground did nothing to stop the actual spread of political ideologies. As Malcolm X said best, "You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it".

Any Vietnam War story is an automatic 4+ stars to me

"Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories."

That's in the opening pages of the book. O'Brien is one of my writing idols, whose stories I sometimes see as a template, and I may as well replace that with my own: "Can the now-illness-free dude teach anything important about cancer, merely for having had it? I think not. He can tell cancer stories."

O'Brien ends the book with something similar during the Q&A, and in between are stories demonstrating the feeling of shame, the horror of the war, and what hatred of another human can look like. I'm blown away he wrote this both while in Vietnam and in the couple years following, and at such a young age when surely I wouldn't have been so grounded.

Here are some of my favorite segments from all those pages in between:

The monotonous shared horror:

Things were peaceful. There was only the sky and the heat and the coming day. Mornings were good. We ate slowly. No reason to hurry, no reason to move. The day would be yesterday. Village would lead to village, and our feet would hurt, and we would do the things we did, and the day would end. “Sleep okay?” Bates said. “Until two hours ago. Something woke me up. Weird—sounded like somebody trying to kill me.” “Yeah,” Barney said. “Sometimes I have bad dreams too.” And we gathered up our gear, doused the fires, saddled up, and found our places in the single file line of march. We left the hill and moved down into the first village of the day.

I can feel the painful morning:

The bones and muscles and brain are not ready for three-o’clock mornings, not ready for duties and harsh voices. The petty urgencies of the mornings physically hurt. The same hopeless feeling that must have overwhelmed inmates of Treblinka: unwilling to escape and yet unwilling to acquiesce, no one to help, no consolation. The reality of the morning kills words. In the mornings at Fort Lewis comes a powerful want for privacy. You pledge yourself to finding an island someday. Or a bolted, sealed, air-conditioned hotel room. No lights, no admittance, no friends, not even your girl, and not even Erik or your starving grandmother.

This is so relatable and touching and sad. He just wanted something real and human, even for a moment:

I walked into a sorority house and rang a button. A girl came down in jeans. Black hair, and blue-rimmed glasses. I told her I was from Minnesota, that one of my fraternity friends there had said I might find a date if I just rang for a girl in this house. She asked for my friend’s name, and I manufactured one. She asked about the fraternity, and, not knowing any of the names, I said Phi Gamma Omega. She said she’d never heard of Phi Gamma Omega, but she crossed her arms and hooked one ankle around the other and seemed willing to talk. “Actually,” I said, “I’m not a sex maniac. I’m just visiting Seattle, and I didn’t want to waste the night. Maybe a movie or something?” “Jeez,” the girl said. “You look like a pretty nice guy. But you know how it is, I have to study. Big exam tomorrow.” “Tomorrow’s Saturday. You have classes on Saturday?” “No, not really. The test’s Monday. It just slipped out, I guess.” “Well,” I said, “the truth is, I didn’t think you’d want to go. But maybe you know somebody.” “Sorry. But it’s just before Christmas break. We’re having finals, you know, and all my friends are at the books.” She smiled. “Besides, this is no way to conduct human relations.” So I left, embarrassed

Hatred is crushing:

A blustery and stupid soldier, blond hair and big belly, picked up a carton of milk and from fifteen feet away hurled it, for no reason, aiming at the old man and striking him flush in the face. The carton burst. Milk sprayed into the old man’s cataracts. He hunched forward, rocking precariously and searching for balance. He dropped his bucket. His hands went to his eyes then dropped loosely to his thighs. His blind gaze fixed straight ahead, at the stupid soldier’s feet. His tongue moved a little, trying to get at the cut and tasting the blood and milk. No one moved to help. The kids were quiet. The old man’s eyes did a funny trick, almost rolling out of his head, out of sight. He was motionless, and finally he smiled. He picked up the bucket and with the ruins of goodness spread over him, perfect gore, he dunked into the well and came up with water, and he began showering the next soldier.

The dehumanizing effect of war:

Other times we talked, and I tried to pry Johansen into conversation about the war. But he was an officer, and he was practical, and he would only talk tactics or history, and if I asked his opinion about the politics or morality of it all, he was ready with a joke or a shrug, sending the conversations into limbo or to more certain ground. Johansen was the best man around, and during the April afternoons it was sad he wore his bars.

My God:

Scraps of our friends were dropped in plastic body bags. Jet fighters were called in. The hamlet was leveled, and napalm was used. I heard screams in the burning black rubble. I heard the enemy’s AK-47 rifles crack out like impotent popguns against the jets. There were Viet Cong in that hamlet. And there were babies and children and people who just didn’t give a damn in there, too. But Chip and Tom were on the way to Graves Registration in Chu Lai; and they were dead, and it was hard to be filled with pity.

Just another day:

we swam. We bellowed and grinned, weapons and ammo in the sand, not giving a damn. We slammed into the water. We punched at it and played in it, soaked our heads in it, slapped it to make cracking, smashing sounds, same as blasting a hand through glass. Mail came. My girlfriend traveled in Europe, with her boyfriend. My mother and father were afraid for me, praying; my sister was in school, and my brother was playing basketball. The Viet Cong were nearby. They fired for ten seconds, and I got onto the radio, called for helicopters, popped smoke, and the medics carried three men to the choppers, and we went to another village.

And finally, O'Brien, the philosopher:

The remaining pages of this little book were written in the two years following my return from Vietnam. First in my hometown of Worthington, Minnesota, and then later in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I sought to bear witness not only to the war, but also to my own failures, and to do so as bluntly and as forcefully as I was then able. The object was not to make literature. The object was to make a document of the sort that might be discovered on the corpse of a young PFC, a Minnesota boy, a boy freshly slaughtered in Quang Ngai Province in the year 1969.

Tim O'Brien is a great liar who always convinces me that he is deeply and sincerely -- perhaps even profoundly -- honest. If I Die in a Combat Zone is a memoir, but I went into it with both eyes open.

After all, one of the best parts of The Things They Carried is not actually reading the book (though it is a very good book). Instead, it's when you learn that Tim O'Brien does not have a daughter, let alone one named Kathleen.

He's pulling out the same tricks here. He writes with sincerity, self analysis, and shares details that seem to suggest credibility. Would a liar share this?

The rest of the men talked about their girls, about R & R and where they would go and how much they would drink and where the girls performed the best tricks. I was a believer during those talks. The vets told it in a real, firsthand way that made you hunger for Thailand and Manila. When they said to watch for the ones with razor blades in their vaginas--communist agents--I believed, imagining the skill and commitment of those women.

Or how about when he looks at the people in the town he grew up in and dismisses them all as unthoughtful "wage earners?" He looks down upon his fellow soldiers during boot camp but begins to reconsider both them and himself when he reaches the front.

When he wonders whether vets can speak to any great truths, he decides not. Instead, he figures:

They can tell war stories.

Well, there are some good stories here, and, regardless of what claim they can make on the truth, they often made me think.

And I particularly liked the final lines of this memoir on the Vietnam War. He is returning from the war and writes:

You take off your uniform. You roll it into a ball and stuff it into your suitcase and put on a sweater and blue jeans. You smile at yourself in the mirror. You grin, beginning to know you're happy. Much as you hate it, you don't have civilian shoes, but no one will notice. It's impossible to go home barefoot.

Recommended.

Honest memoir of O'Brien's tour in Vietnam. His careful word choice conveys the horror of war without preaching or using overly graphic descriptions. The Man at the Well chapter is an especially powerful 2 pages of literature. Many reviewers knocked it as not being "as good" as The Things They Carried, which is a mistake. They are two different genres and each has its distinct purpose.

The paradox 'war is peace' is shattered when a reluctant soldier experiences the consequences of the war, first hand. The result is you are able to conjure up the image of the Vietnam war - the minefields, civilian's sufferings, children dying, the ghostly tunnels. You are shaken. Tim O' Brien survives the war and you have one of the most powerful book ever written on Vietnam.

For me, Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried is the most powerful book that I have every read and it's the standard against which I judge all things O'Brien. In The Things They Carried, O'Brien utilizes a nonlinear and fragmented narrative structure, magical realism, and the power of storytelling to capture the visceral truth that telling the real story can't quite capture. For O'Brien, we must sometimes turn to fiction to capture what is "emotionally true" and, in doing so, be less concerned with an objective reality. In a way, If I Die in a Combat Zone makes this point for him. Written 15 years before Things, If I Die is a memoir of Tim O'Brien's experience in the Vietnam War. There is no metafiction razzle-dazzle, but rather a straight-forward, linear narrative that begins when O'Brien is drafted and ends as he boards the Freedom Bird headed toward home. It's powerful stuff, but not nearly as powerful as his fiction work. Despite that, anything by Tim O'Brien is better than almost anything else out there--fiction or non-fiction.

Having grown up in the post-World War II glow of American military might, O'Brien was raised in the ask-no-questions patriotic culture of the Midwest. Real men were expected to fight. Real men were supposed to look forward to war. Real men craved the opportunity to serve their country and protect their families. O'Brien doesn't reject these values, but these views are complicated by his own philosophical inclinations. He questions the nature of bravery, as well as how American intervention in Vietnam is protecting the average American's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In the aftermath, he's left with no certain answers: "Now, war ended, all I am left with are simple, unprofound scraps of truth. Men die. Fear hurts and humiliates. It is hard to be brave. It is hard to know what bravery is. Dead human beings are heavy and awkward to carry . . . Is that the stuff for a morality lesson, even for a theme? . . . Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories."

And that's what O'Brien does in the novel--he tells war stories. He tells of the tedious days of repetition, punctuated by brief bursts of action; he tells of military incompetence and the frustration of not knowing who the enemy is in a land where farmers by day picked up guns at night; he tells of how cruel being sent on R&R was, knowing the brief return to normality would not last. And he does all of this without being preachy; he simply shows us what life was like for the average soldier and leaves us to draw our own conclusions. His language is at once poetic and precise, getting to the heart of all things. No one can capture the peculiar mix of fear, adrenaline fed excitement, and remorse of a soldier's most introspective moments like O'Brien.

At one point, O'Brien ruminates on Ernest Hemingway's fascination with war: "Some say Ernest Hemingway was obsessed by the need to show bravery in battle. It started, they say, somewhere in World War I and ended when he passed his final test in Idaho. If the man was obsessed with the notion of courage, that was a fault. But, reading Hemingway's war journalism and his war stories, you get the sense that he was simply concerned about bravery, hence about cowardice, and that seems a virtue, a sublime and profound concern that few men have." It's a concern that permeates all of O'Brien's work and his treatment of it is indeed sublime.

Cross posted at This Insignificant Cinder and at Shelf Inflicted