Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Speaking of Courage

Reading this chapter, the word courage doesn't exactly come to mind. I believe choosing to call this chapter, "Speaking of Courage", was a way to lighten the tension, like the way he decided to start his story.

"Let me tell you about the time I almost won the Silver Star."

It's maybe used to brush aside the event as 'not a big deal'. Similar to the way they use military slang to degrade somethings of their emotional value. It's contradictory  that the chapter is called this because war stories can usually be seen as full of valor and soldiers sacrificing themselves for each other. In this story it's not the case, it's about how a veteran deals with the death of his comrade and consequently, himself.

The name of the chapter can be seen as ironic to what we usually expect from war stories. It's used to show how soldiers may deal with tension by making a situation lighter. When Ted Lavender died, they didn't grieve his death or have a good-bye ceremony but instead they smoked his drugs. They don't allow themselves to show any form of emotion because it breaks this whole idea that they're supposed to be tough and unbreakable killing machines.

No comments:

Post a Comment