Death And Its Effects On The Reality Of Death - 1423 Words

They were afraid of dying but there were even more afraid to show it. They found jokes to tell. They used a hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness. Greased they d say. Offed, lit up, zapped while zipping. It wasn t cruelty, just stage presence. They were actors. When someone died, it wasn t quite dying, because in a curious way, it seemed scripted, and because they had their lines mostly memorized, irony mixed with tragedy, and because they called it by other names, as if to encyst and destroy the reality of death itself. pg. 19 To someone just picking up this book, this scene would simply look like some poor soldiers developing a temporary and innocent coping mechanism to deal with Death as they face him head on. But†¦show more content†¦One character is obviously the comic relief, another the beloved hero. The rest, valiant men fighting for their country, their lives, their freedom. The scene ends and the curtain rises, all of the pseudo soldiers take a bow and go home to their normal lives, far from the hands of death that grasp at the men forgotten in Vietnam, the real soldiers. They, who saw the hardships of war as more than just a script, beyond the glamorized versions that are seen by the American eyes. They saw the death and the tragedy, slowly becoming worn down into less of a human and more of a desensitized killing machine because that s what war does. It permanently scars the soldiers, tearing away the feeling of loss and inappropriately replacing it with comedy, showing that war is destructive, stealing away an ounce of humanity with each bullet. As seen in The Things They Carried, written by Tim O Brien, the Vietnam War destroyed the minds of soldiers, causing them to lose their human emotions in an unglamorous setting, devaluing death as they lose their ability to appropriately handle situations. Center stage stands a man, young and valiant, seemingly fearless. Well, until a bullet collides with his brain and he loses his id entity as Ted Lavender and adapts his new one as another tally of the total number of men killed in action. But he is not actually killed. No, he is greased they d say.