Walking the Wall

I was born in 1968 and was only five years old when the war officially ended for the US, but it was a war that was very much in the social commentary of my growing up years. The image of the black POW/MIA flag was a prominent memory of mine, and the whole discourse of the rightness or wrongness of the war, the social fallout of loosing a war, and so on and so forth had an impact on me. Then when I was 7 years old my aunt married a Vietnam veteran who had been paralyzed in the war, and he fulfilled all the fantasies a young  girl has a of soldier returned home from the war. He was funny, and loving, stern and flexible all at once, incredibly strong despite being in a wheel chair. So it is no wonder that most of my junior high and highschool years were spent obsessed with this war. I read books upon books about it, wrote umpteen poems about and to the POWs, and wore the bracelets–I was horrified at the thought of men having been left behind, forgotten soldiers in a war everyone wanted to forget. I will never forget standing in front of the Vietnam memorial my senior year in highschool and getting some idea of the true cost of war.

So I was very interested to see the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien on my reading list for my short story class this semester and have looked forward to reading it all this time. I have to say that it was well worth the wait. Granted the topic alone would make it an interesting read for me, but the truth is, O’Brien is really an incredible short story writer. The topic is not pretty, and he does nothing to attempt to flower it up–the war is portrayed as what it was, dirty, frightening, cruel, and fought by men (many only boys) wonderfully flawed as we all are as human beings. The opening story (from which the title of the book got its name) is simply beautifully written. The story seems obsessed with the minute details of what the men physically were carrying on their backs–as the soldiers themselves had to be–detailing items by weight again and again–but the point wasn’t really what they were carrying on their backs–"It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside" (p. 25). The rest of the book follows this theme, this idea of the terrible weight they carried inside of them, and transversely, the terrible weightlessness of disconnection to reality.

I cannot recommend this book enough, it is not easy to read because of the rawness of many of the stories, O’Brien lays out all of the experiences without flinching–one of the most powerful being "On The Rainy River" about one boy’s struggle with answering the draft or going across the river into the Canada. He knew that he was against the principles (or lack thereof) of the war, but he was afraid of the social consequences of refusing to participate and it ends with the profound sentence, "I was a coward. I went to war" (p. 61). In another story on how to write a good war story, he notes that "there’s nothing much to say about a true war story, except maybe ‘Oh’" (p. 77) and that is exactly the reaction many of these stories gives you. But it is a deep, internal, "oh" that hits you at the gut level thinking of 18 year old boys and men being put in these situations.  Although he seems to say in words that heroics are all found in Hollywood movies,  the stories speak for themselves, and I know that our family is grateful for one hero, my uncle wrote about the day he was shot:

June 17th, 1970, I was lying on a mountain side in the central highlands of Viet Nam, seriously wounded by a Russian AK-47 round that had entered my body about an inch below my left shoulder blade. It struck my spine and followed the spine down for a few inches until it crossed over to the opposite side of my spine, and continued its course until it came to rest behind my right knee.

The impact of the round hitting my spine was comparable to having your arms tied to a dragster pointed North, and the legs of your body tied to a dragster pointed South, and at a given command, both speed away in their respective directions posthaste; and, at that simultaneous instant, your body, stretched and torn, sends a thunderbolt of information to the brain: PAIN.

After the pain subsided, still leaning on my weapon, the firing continuing around me, I thought to call the medic, Paul McCombie, to help me. But I could not think of his name. So, just like in the movies, I yelled, "Medic."

After saying that word, the most wonderful sight I can remember entered my vision. Amid the firing, out in the open, unprotected, came the medic on his hands and knees, with his little bag of supplies swaying back and forth under him.

I could never tell you in words what it meant for me to have that brave man risk his life, under fire, to help me. Wounded very seriously and knowing it, helpless, fearful that I would be shot again-I found comfort because this fellow soldier was beside me.

He never saw the man again until a year and a half or so before my uncle died from Lou Gehrig’s disease in 1998, 26 years after he saved his life–it was such a powerful reunion for both men and I don’t believe for one moment that heroes are only for Hollywood. Certainly there are no such thing as perfect heroes, but heroic acts can be found every day in all different places, even Vietnam.

The interesting thing, and one of the reasons I think it is such a powerful book, is that while it is about a very specific topic–the stories of a small group of soldiers before, during, and after the Vietnam war–it touches on so many topics that apply to everyone. Issues of what is truth, of the truth that isn’t about details but about gut experiences, about dealing with issues that take us outside the realm of "normal", about social responsibility, about human frailty and human strength, about struggling for healing, and very much about the need to be heard. These are all issues that we can relate to even if we were never forced to walk from a world of highschool football games to being shot at in the rice fields of Vietnam.