English 015 - Americans Abroad
War Stories
War Stories
Category: 4E: O'Brien | Meaghan Tanguay
War Stories
“What Paul Berlin knew best was the land…He knew the dangerous places and he knew the safe places” (p250). The soldiers of the Third Squad say the land in Nam is their enemy. However, they are misled and the true enemy proves to be their fellow soldier. On the Third Squad’s treacherous journeys to the observation post and to Paris, Frenchie, Bernie, Pederson, Lieutenant Sidney Marin, and Cacciato die not because of the land but because of a lack of community, and the direct betrayal of a fellow soldier.
In Paul Berlin’s imagination, Li Van Hgoc a Viet Cong soldier tries to convince him that “the land is [his] true enemy” (p.86). However, Paul Berlin sees community in the land and the community that is lacking in his group of traveling soldiers. He sees the land as “village-owned and village-run, the farms were worked not as private enterprise but as the enterprise of community; the land was planted and tended by the people who lived in the villages, and the harvest was placed in huge clay jugs, some of which were buried, some of which were taken to market in larger village” (p.251). Paul Berlin buries himself in the land at night to feel a sense of community and safety. The community he lacks in his fellow soldiers and safety he finds sleeping alone in the warmth of the land away from his enemies. Frenchie, Bernie, Lieutenant Sidney Martin, Pederson, and Cacciato only find enemies in their fellow soldier who send them to their deaths.
Frenchie and Bernie die because their Lieutenant not the land. Sidney Martin, unnecessarily and recklessly orders them down into a V.C. tunnel resulting in their deaths. The soldiers know entering a tunnel in the land is dangerous. The soldiers believe the logical thing is to blow the tunnels up without needlessly risking their lives. Oscar insists, “Blow’em. Forget going down-just blow the fuckers an’ let’s move on” (p232). However, Lieutenant Sidney Martin’s betrays his soldiers because he will not let go of the Standard Operating Procedure. He pushes both Frenchie and Bernie’s into dangerous places and unnecessarily causes their deaths. The Lieutenant himself does not escape war justice in Nam. For his involvement in Frenchie and Bernie’s deaths his men decide to punish him. Lieutenant Sidney Martin is betrayed by his soldiers, like he betrays them: justice.
Lieutenant Sidney Martin’s enemies become his own soldiers of the Third Squad. The soldiers of the Third Squad minds are filled with revenge and they conspire to kill him. Lieutenant Sidney Martin tries to send his men down another tunnel hole after both Frenchie and Bernie die following his orders. The men are mutinous. Martin orders every man to go down and they all reply “No”. Martin enters the tunnel, and while he is down in the tunnel the men plan his death. Oscar pulls out a grenade and gets every man to touch it. Oscar orders, “‘Touch it.’ He held the grenade out. He pulled the pin and clamped the spoon with his thumb. ‘Everyone, I want it unanimous’” (p235). The land did not claim Lieutenant Sidney Martin’s life his enemies took it.
Pederson is another victim of “friendly fire”. Pederson becomes another victim of fellow soldiers who become his enemies. The Third Squad is dropped off at their next mission site and the gunners on the Chinook are reckless with their machine guns. The have no concern for their fellow soldiers on the ground. “The gunners kept firing. They hunched over their hot guns and fired and fired. They fired blindly and without aim” (p130). There are no Viet Cong in the area and Pederson is shot in the leg and in the stomach. He is able shot back against the American soldier, his enemies, in the Chinook before he dies. Pederson lying on the ground after being shot numerous times by the gunners, “aimed carefully…He fired again, and again, carefully, and chunks of green plastic jumped off the Chinook’s fat belly” (p.132). Pederson’s enemies become the gunmen, whom betray Pederson and take his life. Pederson dies lying in the warm swampy paddies of Vietnam.
Cacciato is a victim of Paul Berlin’s betrayal. Paul Berlin guns down Cacciato on the hill side. Cacciato’s death is unclear; however Paul Berlin’s insanity is real. On top of the hill when the Third Squad surrounds Cacciato and Paul Berlin’s imagination of storming a Hotel in Paris to capture Cacciato are really scenes of the same event. Both scenes are sprinkled with hits of the reality of Cacciato’s death at Paul Berlin’s hands. Paul Berlin, “shaking, shaking-he couldn’t stop it. He tried to drop the weapon. He tried to throw it, but it kept shaking him” (p.330). Moments later Paul Berlin hears: Cacciato, “Someone was whimpering. A pitiful, silly sound. Behind him in the dark there were shouts, voices calling, the sound of someone running” (p.330); but Paul Berlin kept on firing. “Red tracers made darts that stuck to far walls…Holes opened like magic in the walls. The plaster turned crisp and black” (p330).
The next scene opens with Doc comforting Paul, “It’s okay. All over, all over. Fine now” (p.331). It’s unclear about Cacciato’s fate, however, “[Paul] remembered the smell of the fire, the sense of something hidden” (p.334). The smell and the presence of something hidden is the Third Squad’s cover-up of Paul Berlin’s brutal murder of Cacciato: “butchery, no less: Cacciato’s right temple caving inward, silence, then an enormous explosion of outward-going brains” (p.14). The soldiers burn his body to hide the events that took place on the hill their last memory of Cacciato. The procedure after a member of the Third Squad dies is to collect his dog tags, gather his things and call in a dust off to pick up his body, “Doc gathered up the things Cacciato had left behind-some Hershey bars, two signal flares, the dog tags. Oscar strapped Cacciato’s weapon to his pack” (p334). However, they don’t need to call a dust off to call pick up Cacciato’s body. Instead the Lieutenant radios back, “missing in Action, Lieutenant said. He spelled out Cacciato’s name phonetically, repeated it, his voice calm” (p.335). Cacciato becomes just another war story where “people would laugh and shake their heads, nobody, would believe a word. Just one more war story” (p.335).
The soldiers of the Third Squad blame the deaths of their fellow soldiers and their misfortunes on the land. They make the tangible land their enemy when the truth is the enemy is themselves. The war stories pile up and Paul Berlin cannot keep the events of the war in chronological order. “Pretending was the best trick to forget the war” (p.10) for Paul Berlin. The atrocities caused by fellow soldiers on other soldiers are indescribable and Paul Berlin and the other soldiers do what they can to cover them up. “The real war was forgotten” (p.288). They create and convince themselves of elaborate possibilities. “The possibilities were endless” (p35).
Posted by on December 15, 2003 at 12:55 PM