English 015 - Americans Abroad
Desertion Sparks Retaliation
Desertion Sparks Retaliation
Category: 4E: O'Brien | Meg Gray
As portrayed in Going After Cacciato by Tim O’Brien, the Vietnam War is brutal and intense. The soldiers are constantly bombarded with images of violence, death, and cruelty. They live helplessly in horrifying conditions: “the rain fed fungus that grew in the men’s boots and socks, and their socks rotted, and their feet turned soft and white so that the skin could be scrapped off with a fingernail, and Stink Harris woke up screaming one night with a leech on his tongue” (p. 1). In order to survive the intensity and horror of their surroundings, the soldiers need to feel connected, to feel like they are part of something. Though “the absence of common purpose” (p.165) threatens to tear the men apart during this troubled war, the soldiers form bonds on a more personal but equally strong level. Camaraderie and alliance are necessary for sanity and survival. When these bonds are broken, the consequences are severe. Neither mental nor physical desertion is tolerated. Whether large or small, real or purely the imagination of Paul Berlin, betrayal is always countered by some form of retaliation.
A soldier depends on his commanding officer to be on his side. The men of the Third Squad dislike their leader, Lieutenant Sidney Martin. “No one cared much for Sidney Martin-too fastidious, too skinny, hair too blond and fine. The way he kept pushing. A believer in mission, a believer in searching tunnels and bunkers. Too disciplined. Too clearheaded for this lousy war” (p. 105). They still, however, feel he should be their ally. Though Martin knows his beliefs are “unpopular,” he still looks at every soldier “as part of a whole, as one of many soldiers pressed together by the force of mission” (p. 165). When Martin continues to put the mission above the men over and over again, the soldiers feel deserted. “‘Diggin’ hisself trouble,’ he [Oscar Johnson] said. ‘That’s all I say, the man diggin’ hisself some deep fuckin’ trouble’” (p. 109). Martin’s betrayal of his soldiers allows them to band together against him. After two men die in the same tunnel, the men refuse to search any more of them. “Honest, there’s not a man here, not a single soul, who is gonna put hisself down in that hole” (p.232). The men kill Martin by blowing up a tunnel while he is still searching it. He dies because he deserts the trust of his men and they retaliate.
Retaliation against someone the soldiers already loathe, like Sidney Martin, is easy to believe whether he deserts them or not. The members of the Third Squad, however, feel so strongly about being deserted that they will strike back against anyone who betrays them even if they love the betrayer dearly. Lieutenant Corson, “a platoon leader the men could finally love” (p. 43) replaces Lieutenant Martin. It is Corson who orders the Third Squad to go after Cacciato. In Delhi, however, Lieutenant Corson “showed no interest in looking for Cacciato” (p.172). He “transferred loyalties” (p.171) from the cause of his men to the friendly hostess Jolly Chand. When it is time to move on the Lieutenant declares, “No more crap about duty and mission. I’m out of it,” (p. 174) despite pleas from his men that they need him still. He emotionally deserts his men and he wants to physically abandon them as well. “The men loved him [Corson],” (p.144) but they won’t stand for this sort of treatment. They are not about to let Corson live out his days being doted on by a beautiful woman while they are fighting a war. By hauling the Lieutenant to the train station with them while he is passed out they both retaliate for the emotional abandonment and prevent the imminent physical desertion of the Lieutenant. The soldiers revenge towards Lieutenant Corson is proof that the Third Squad will retaliate against people regardless of how much they like them. It also proves that the switch from reality to fantasy does not effect the reaction that the soldiers have to desertion since at this point on the road to Paris the travelers are part of Paul Berlin’s dream not real life.
The squad feels that the moral desertion of their Lieutenant is betrayal and they view the physical desertion of Cacciato the same way. “They were organized also around the principles of trust” (p. 43). Cacciato breaks that trust by running away on a journey to Paris. The degrading descriptions of Cacciato after he leaves show just how upset his comrades are over his departure. They call him “dumb as a dink” (p. 7), an “ asshole,” and a “ridiculous little yo-yo” (p. 21). He needs to be punished for leaving. As Stink Harris explains it, Cacciato “can’t just waddle away from a war, ain’t that right, sir. Dummy’s [Cacciato’s] got to be taught you can’t hump your way home” (p. 10). They only way that Cacciato can be punished for abandoning them in Vietnam is if he gets caught. Instead of letting Cacciato slip through the woodwork and disappear, his fellow soldiers tell the Lieutenant what he has done which in turn inspires the chase after Cacciato.
By deserting his squad to walk to Paris, Cacciato feels he is merely doing what his fellow soldiers always think of doing. He therefore thinks that the Third Squad is deserting him by even attempting to chase after him. He shows this feeling by sending a subtle hint that he feels betrayed. He sets “a booby’s booby trap” (p. 20) for his pursuers. “It was red smoke. The message was clear” (p. 20). Cacciato did not want them to follow him. When they continue to chase him, his form of retaliation becomes more drastic and more dangerous. The pursuers believe they have caught Cacciato. Then something explodes. “ A monstrous sound hit him [Paul Berlin]. It jerked him back…the sound spun him around…Red tracers made darts that stuck to the far walls. A smoldering smell. Burning” (p. 330). This time the bomb Cacciato set is real, not just smoke. He is willing to kill his comrades because they desert him. Cacciato’s role as both a deserter and as someone who is deserted makes him a symbol of the fracturing alliances throughout the book.
Objects, not just people, are capable of evoking feelings of desertion in the men of the Third Squad. Instead of carefully dropping the squad off, the Chinook helicopter in charge of leaving the men at Landing Zone Bravo is not “going down smoothly. The ship fell hard, dropped again, bounced, and Paul Berlin shivered and held to the wall webbing, wondering how it could be so cold” (p.127). The men blame the craft not the crew for their rude entrance, so they all sit and watch as Pederson, who is dragged down the Chinook’s ramp and thrown out, and then shot at by the copter’s crew, “calmly aimed and fired into its plastic belly” (p.132). Not only does the rest of Pederson’s squad feel the Chinook deserves to be shot at for abandoning and then shooting at them in the middle of a rice paddy, but it also deserves to be shot at for making them desert their comfort zones to cope with a horrible, loud, turbulent flight.
The men of the Third Squad feel deserted in reality and fantasy, by people they like and by people they dislike, by not only living things but by inanimate objects as well. Whether by killing, kidnapping or merely chasing the betrayer, the squad always gets its revenge for infidelity. This established pattern of desertion and retaliation is continued in the general story line of Paul Berlin’s dream. The fantasy trip to Paris symbolizes Berlin’s desire to desert. Yet in his dream obstacles constantly face the travelers. In Tehran, they are arrested and nearly executed; in Athens, all appears lost when policemen greet their ship at the dock. These roadblocks represent the internal conflict Berlin has over his desire to desert versus his desire to dutifully serve his country. He punishes himself for his desire to desert by not letting his dream world be perfect. Paul Berlin’s thoughts epitomize why the men need to retaliate against desertion. The only thing preventing all of the men from deserting is the knowledge that punishment for desertion cannot be escaped. “You could run, but you couldn’t outrun the consequences of running. Not even in imagination” (p.226).
Posted by on December 15, 2003 at 10:33 AM