—"Raid," Ted Janis (81).
"The problem is, your thoughts don't come out in any kind of straight order. You don't think, oh, I did A, then B, then C, the D. You try to think about home, then you're in the torture house."
—"Redeployment," Phil Klay (40).
I once took part in a panel discussion about war with the author Karl Marlantes. Karl is a good friend of mine, and I know that he draws an enormous amount of pride from having led a Marine platoon through some of the heaviest combat of the Vietnam War. At one point a very agitated man stood up and started screaming that he was a Vietnam vet as well, and that Karl and I didn't understand the first thing about war—it was all obscene, down to its smallest detail. Then he stormed out.
"That," Karl finally said into the stunned silence, "is one of the things that's going to happen if you truly let vets speak their mind about the war."
–Tribes, Sebastian Junger (Twelve, 2016; 122)
 |
| Ted Janis, al-Awsat, Afghanistan, 16 November 2007 |
 |
| Phil Klay |
 | |||
| Sebastian Junger |
 |
| Gavin Kovite, Vashon Island School District, WA |
We're a long way from Sgt. Horvath convincing Captain Miller that staying in Ramalle and saving Private Ryan might be the only "decent thing [they would be able] to pull out of this god awful shitty mess." We're now in Afghanistan and Iraq where "some motherfuckers die" and dogs lap up blood from the dead in the street and "it's open season on dogs" (39). And you're ready to go back to war "because fuck all this" (48). I've said that the theme of this semester's material would be atrocity. So...
1. What moment from both stories stayed with you and why?
2. Is atrocity present in both stories? If so, where do we see it—and how does it fit the definition? If not, how would you define the most awful moment or part of the story?
3. We said that "When Engaging Targets, Remember" was about inevitability. That the BMW was going to be shot up no matter what. I call it a horror story—which makes it, and both stories you're reading, true war stories. What connection can you make between all three stories?
Looking forward to talking about all this tomorrow!
Many things have stood out to me about these two stories, which I think are pretty perfectly written. I remember where, in “Redeployment,” Klay narrates, “It was the noise that bothered me. I didn’t mind cleaning the carpet” (48). He has become so accustomed to a world of carnage, a little vomit means nothing to him. However, in war, everything happens and escalates so quickly compared to the everyday life of an elderly dog. He is forced to focus on the noise where in war, there are other horrors the mind must focus on.
ReplyDeleteIn “Raid,” Janis describes war as, “The only chance to leave the bullshit behind. Without women or alcohol, without cars or drugs, we had only this [togetherness and/or the mission, which maybe are the same thing]” (82). These things that Janis lists are what people often think of as the glories, thrills, and frivolities of life. Janis wants to escape the things that people desire, which gives me an uncomfortable feeling of being trapped.
YES. Google definition of “atrocity:” “horrifyingly wicked.” Atrocity is most definitely present, especially in the description of the torture house in “Redeployment.” It is too horrible to even fathom even though I’m given a detailed description in writing. In “Raid,” Janis’ inability to distinguish Peters’ screams from the others’ is pretty horrifyingly wicked. It is wicked that war has led him to not being able to recognize a friend’s death among others.
In “Raid,” Janis narrates, “Death is life” to Omar. I believe this to be a common theme among the two stories. Death brings these soldiers back to life. Peters’ death brings Janis back to life, as he now recognizes the individuality of death and the great things this person brought to his life. He is brought back to the mortality, therefore the humanity and the life, of the situation. In “Redeployment,” shooting Vicar, death, brings a little bit of life back to Klay. It brings him back to the time where he chose to value life by not shooting the soldier in the cistern. Klay forgets his plan for Vicar’s body, which shows yet another tidbit of life brought back. The order and atrocity of war leads one to not being able to forget but to forget is to remind oneself that they are alive.
1. When I look back on “Redeployment,” the moment I remember is the narrator’s hesitation before shooting Vicar. I’m surprised that that hesitation has stayed with me much more than the three shots that followed, but for some reason I can vividly picture Vicar wagging his tail and looking up at the narrator. This especially stays with me because, when I picture this scene, I picture my family’s old dog, Lucky, who I grew up with and who we put down a few years ago. There isn’t a moment from “Raid” that has stayed with me as vividly as that, but I do remember the repeating theme of how strongly the narrator wants to get out of the army and go home, especially after two deployments.
ReplyDelete2. I think that atrocity is present in both stories. It is much more apparent in “Raid”, with the ambush and, despite all the effort put in by the narrator, Peters’ death. While the majority of “Redeployment” takes place at home, I think that atrocity is present in how the narrator talks about the war and “operation Scooby,” and in how he describes shooting Vicar, as it shows how he was trained to kill quickly and efficiently. The definition of atrocity is fairly vague, described as “shockingly bad,” and I believe that these stories are enveloped within that.
3. The connection I would make between all three stories is, despite all the training and preparing, the moment of hesitation felt by these narrators. We discussed the hesitation in “When Engaging Targets, Remember” extensively, and I wrote about the hesitation in “Redeployment” earlier in this blog, but there also is a moment of hesitation in “Raid,” when the narrator sees Peters’ face. In the story, despite his best efforts not to look at the man’s face, the narrator sees it, and pauses, thinking about how “his screams had been indistinguishable from the others” (84).
1. In "Redeployment", one part that stayed with me in particular was the description of orange: the comparison between what people see or hear walking through a public area who have not had to fear for their lives or check each building for someone who wants to kill them versus someone like Sergeant Price who's last time walking down a city street he was afraid for his life and did have to be on high alert like that. I feel like this description of noticing every little detail and just trying to get to the next moment of your life and stay alive is possibly a good insight into what some parts of PTSD can be like or come from. One moment from "Raid" that really stuck with me was the whole underlying theme of religion and that last line of the story that read "Home, where Peters lay waiting." For some reason in this story in particular, there seemed to a very weak and thin divide between death and life, and it seemed like Doc believed that Heaven or wherever "home" is for him in the afterlife was very nearby and easily accessible. I feel like Doc wanted to go "home" or die.
ReplyDelete2. Atrocity fits war and therefore atrocity fits both of these stories. The inevitability of death in war is atrocity. In "Redeployment" it kinds of brings back the whole idea of determined fate from "When Engaging Targets, Remember" which is atrocious; no matter what you do, the ending is the same and people will die. When Sergeant Price hesitates to shoot the insurgent in the cesspit, just as he hesitates to shoot Vicar, the insurgent dies anyways because there are four other Marines shooting at him anyways. The fact that it doesn't matter whether you pull the trigger or not because there's always going to be someone else behind or beside you to get the job done if you won't is atrocious. The atrocity that I found in this story is this moment where pulling the trigger or not pulling the trigger became the same thing. In "Raid" I found the most atrocious moment to be the line on pages 82-83 that says, "I scanned the village, so mute and ignorant of the violence about to play out". Once again, it is death's inevitability in war that continues to shock me. In that current moment, there is peace. But, this line just seems so accepting of knowing that this peace is about to be disrupted by violence and war and there is no stopping it. The fact that this Doc's whole job is to wait around until someone inevitably dies or gets hurt and then he gets to work is what I find to be the most atrocious part.
3. Similar to my answer for #2, the inevitability of death is a very common theme in all of these stories. No matter what you decide to do, kill or pull the trigger or not, it will not impact the end result. For "Raid" it was the fact that the main character is a Doc so his whole job only comes to play when someone inevitably needs him because they are dying or injured and there is nothing he can do to stop people from needing his assistance. For both "When Engaging Targets, Remember" and "Redeployment" it's the fact that it didn't matter whether they were the one to the pull trigger or not because either way their target was going to die and their decision to hesitate or differ their pulling of the trigger would not change the fate of the person dying. In all three of these stories, it didn't matter the main characters' decisions and the only important part was the underlying part of how they respond or how these inevitable deaths affect them.
1. One moment from “Redeployment” that stayed with me is when Cheryl takes her husband shopping in WIlmington. He describes how difficult it is to adjust to a task as simple as shopping because he is “at orange” the whole time (49). He goes into the American Eagle Outfitter’s dressing room and doesn’t “want to open [the door] again” because he is so overwhelmed. I cannot imagine being so paranoid and aware of my surroundings all the time, so this section gave me a sense of how differently a veteran may see the world. One moment from “Raid” that stayed with me is when the narrator tells Omar about the difference between the ways civilians and soldiers view death. I thought it was a well-phrased and thought-provoking explanation.
ReplyDelete2. Yes, I think atrocity is present in both stories. As a dog-lover, “Operation Scooby” in Redeployment is what I would consider an atrocity. The dogs were drinking human blood, which is awful on its own, but killing dogs on purpose is a shockingly bad action. The name makes it even worse. In “Raid,” I think Peters’ death is an atrocity because it is a shockingly bad situation. The pain and gory description of his injury combined with the medic’s failed attempt at keeping his friend alive make it an awful scene.
3. All three stories mention how being a soldier can become a ritualistic job despite the incredible violence. In “Redeployment,” the narrator says that in war “you don’t think about it” and describes how he kills people without a second thought until after the war (39). In “Raid,” the narrator echoes this by saying that war is a ritual and that he is doing “call and response” (79). In “When Engaging Targets, Remember,” the story is based around you who, at least in the beginning, is doing your job according to procedure but, despite being in charge of a weapon and in the middle of a war zone, still begins to daydream about other things.
1. What moment from both stories stayed with you and why?
ReplyDeleteIn “Redeployment”, what stood out to me was the way he killed Vicar, making sure that he would have the quickest death as possible without having pain in the process: “If I shoot you there with the shots coming fast, it’s no problem. The ripples tear up your heart and lungs, and you don’t do the death rattle, you just die. There’s shock, but no pain”(52). The scene itself is so heartbreaking, a man having to kill his own dog, yet what weighs on me more heavily is that he felt it was his own responsibility to kill Vicar alone, without anyone by his side.
In “Raid”, what stood out to me was when Ted talks about the difference of death in the civilian world and in war: “In our country, non one ever thinks about death. It’s completely removed from our lives...But then we over here and it’s our faces. Over here, death is life” (81). Also, when he ends the story, he says, “Home, where Peters lay waiting” (85). This perhaps could allude to the notion that death is so constant, it has become home, the only thing constant in the ever changing environment of war.
2. Is atrocity present in both stories? If so, where do we see it—and how does it fit the definition? If not, how would you define the most awful moment or part of the story?
In my opinion, there is always an atrocity in every war story, whether it be apparent or hidden through the writing and the actions of the characters themselves. Both stories deal with the grappling of death. In “Redeployment”, Phil Kay grapples with the reality of death after the war, and the suffering of those close to him, especially his dog Vicar. The atrocity is how war has affected him. He is traumatized by war, seeing things normal civilians wouldn’t even dare to imagine: “You try to think about home, then you’re in the torture house. You see the body parts in the locker room” (40). In “Raid”, Ted is always surrounded by death and the wounded, being a medical Ranger. He witnesses his own comrade die before him, knowing that he forgot one of his wounds.
3. We said that "When Engaging Targets, Remember" was about inevitability. That the BMW was going to be shot up no matter what. I call it a horror story—which makes it, and both stories you're reading, true war stories. What connection can you make between all three stories?
Again, I would just say the atrocity of death in war. Every story, someone dies (multiple people), regardless of the actions of the narrator or main person of the story. Each story calls into the inevitability of death in war, how it is around every corner, the outcome for every action, and for every decision you make, it only dictates who dies rather than if one would die or not. Someone will always die, the real question is, who will? Each story also shows the atrocity war has inflicted onto the narrator’s or writer’s mentality. War has changed how they view the world and their perspective forever.
1. There were several things that stood out to me from both of these stories, including the style of the different narration, the imagery, and the character dynamics. The part of “Redeployment” that stands out to me the most is when the narrator describes all of the things he encounters in war from humans in cages to dead bodies to old photographs. I find this section of the story to be written especially beautiful, and the way in which the transformation of the girl in the photographs is described perfectly encapsulates and highlights the immense tragedy of the situation. What struck me the most from “Raid” was how the author wrote about war and the military in terms of religion. Although I am not sure that I fully understand or agree with this analogy, I think that it brings to light new angles and perspectives that I would never have reached on my own.
ReplyDelete2. I think that yes, atrocity is present in both “Redeployment” and “Raid.” By definition, something that is “atrocious” is “extremely wicked, brutal, or cruel.” In both stories the narrators are clearly disillusioned by the war and their place in it (especially in “Raid” as the narrator watches Peter die despite his efforts to save him), and both of them recount their experiences and the terrible things they have seen in war. Both stories mention the fact that during war one’s mindset and very “brain chemistry” changes so that as soldiers they can function and complete their jobs. The new mindset that soldiers engaged in combat take on is clearly a survival mechanism, and to me this illustrates just how terribly atrocious war is that soldiers have to refigure their bodies merely to get by.
3. When comparing all three stories I think that the theme of inevitability comes through in different ways, yet it remains the underlying factor that connects all true war stories. As we discussed at length in class, the entire premise of “When Engaging Targets, Remember” hinges upon the fact that regardless of the different choices, the BMW is also shot in any scenario. I think that this same inevitability is expressed in “Raid,” especially by Omar as he notes: “One thing you learn is that some motherfuckers kill, and some motherfuckers die. You Rangers are on the killing side most days” (81). Although who is killed differs from day to day, Omar makes the point that death is an inescapable wartime reality. Lastly, even in “Redeployment” after the protagonist returns home, he is unable to escape the death and atrocity associated with war as is seen in the last scene when he shoots his dog, Vicar. The story both begins and ends with images of dogs surrounded by blood and thus illustrates the cyclical nature of war and peace that inevitably ends in death.
Prompt One: For me, one moment that particularly stood out was when the doctor in “Raid” had just applied the tunicates, sealing the blood-loss from legs, only to find another wound that had gone unnoticed. “Looking good, Ranger, looking good,” he had said, only to have that moment of hope lost in an instant: “…Shit, shit, shit. FUCK.” This part stuck with me because it lent itself to the futility I know the doc has been feeling--it’s his third tour in the never ending war--for goodness’ sakes, they’re on Charon 8 already! Pretty much I just kept thinking about the cycle of modern warfare… what Omar had said, and also how the doc had commented that with each insurgent down, they had created room for more.
ReplyDeletePrompt Two: Focusing on the part of definition “Shockingly bad moment,” I think that atrocity is present in both stories. In “Redeployment,” I felt this at the return of the soldiers. Moments like when the narrator cannot remember where his keys are in his house or when Weissert--after having given up so much to serve--comes back for no one to be waiting for him. In “Raid,” I thought that these shockingly bad moments came when Omar talks about how this has been happening for 30 years. These stories are all short: single moments in time, often no more than a few days. To imagine their level of intensity for such an extended period, happening to countless people at once, is atrocious to me.
Prompt Three: I think that all these stories talk about “The mission.” It’s what’s mentioned by doc in “Raid,” and the premise of “Engaging Targets.” This is what’s left, after one gets rid of the amenities and comforts of life at home, the “women or alcohol, the cars or drugs.” This is why it’s hard to come home in “Redeployment,” and walk down the street outside of your “Orange zone.”
1) In “Redeployment,” the beginning part of it where Phil Klay says, “The thinking comes later, when they give you the time” stuck with me. It shows how instinctual and almost animal-like the military makes soldiers become. They do not have time to think, so they must simply act. Even though I feel removed from active military life I still relate to the sentiment about being consumed in a moment or action and only after thinking about the greater implications of what I have done. Similarly to Molly, I found the theme of faith and ritual which was woven into “Raid” very interesting. Ted Janis says, “Two deployments ago, I drank the Kool-Aid––drank it like it was the blood of Christ. Two deployments was a long time ago. Now it was all about the ritual.” And then later on the first page Janis says that he “never was believer material [and] at least [he] get[s] to jump out of planes.” I found it all very amusing, and like in “Redeployment” I drew a connection between Janis’ feeling of ritual as appose to real belief with how I often feel about my own faith.
ReplyDelete2) As Anna eloquently said in class, “war is a necessary atrocity.” Therefore, atrocity is present in both stories because they are both about war. In both stories, young and healthy people die which I believe is an atrocity. In “Raid” the primary atrocity is the death of Peters and in “Redeployment” the primary atrocity is the death of the dogs in “‘Operation Scooby” (39) and in the killing of his own dog.
3) All three stories discuss in some way or another the importance and challenges of living with yourself. In “When Engaging Targets, Remember,” his choices are largely based off of how he can best live with the consequences of his actions. In “Redeployment,” although it pains Klay to kill his dog. He would struggle to live with himself knowing that his dog is in a tremendous amount of pain and knowing that he made someone else deal with it. Lastly, in “Raid,” Janis is simply biding his time until his contract is up because he cannot live with himself knowing that “These days we create more insurgents than we kill” (81).
1. The moment that stuck with me from “Redeployment” was when Sgt. Price sees Eicholtz’s dad holding the sign that says: WELCOME BACK HEROES OF BRAVO COMPANY. The reason this moment stuck with me was because at first I didn’t understand why Eicholtz’s dad would show up to the return of the company when his son was not returning. The more I thought about it, the more I understood that regardless of whether his son was dead or alive, the marines will forever be a part of his life. I felt sad knowing that in each one of the men and women he congratulated on their return home, he must have seen a little bit of his son. The moment from “Raid” that stayed with me was when the doc says that Peter’s screams were indistinguishable from anyone else's. This stuck with me because it shows that the men are mostly just numbers and the fact that the doc avoids looking at the man’s face shows that deaths like this one happen far too often.
ReplyDelete2. I think that atrocity is present in both stories. In “Redeployment,” I think that the atrocity lies in the mental pain that would cause a man like Sgt. Price to kill his dog in such an organized and routine method. The scene where he kills his dog was not the atrocity; it was the cause for the killing of the dog. This fits the definition because the moment is “shockingly bad.” In “Raid,” the atrocity lies in the doc’s manner of going about his job. He repeats to himself, “Don’t look at his face.” This line shows that what the doc is witnessing is inhumane and he cannot bear to see another soldier dead. This fits the definition of atrocity because it shows atrocious acts being committed often during war.
3. All three stories touch on the idea of routine. In "When Engaging Targets, Remember," the narrator is in a position that is not unique in any way. He talks about how he must watch for VBIEDs because they are a common occurrence. In “Redeployment,” the way in which the narrator shoots his own dog seems very routine. He takes the dog in three shots instead of one, as if he had done the same thing many times over to a dog or another human. In “Raid,” the death of Peters seems nonchalant after the fact. Omar says, “Some motherfuckers die,” as if to say its all part of war. All three of these stories have a sort of feeling that the tasks being completed have happened over and over and are not unique to each story.
In Redeployment, the interaction between Cheryl and Sergeant Price when they are discussing putting down Vicar stuck with me. I understand that Sergeant Price feels that he should be the one to end his dog’s life because he is obviously very close to the Vicar and has enough experience to shoot his dog, but it still feel like the logical option is to put down Vicar with Cheryl. Perhaps the disagreement about putting the dog down has to do with the couples differing views on death. To Cheryl, death is most likely something she fears. Because civilians are not regularly put in near death situations, death is foreign. Cheryl’s decision to put Vicar down is a way to distance herself from his death. On the other hand, Sergeant Price has a more intimate relationship with death as a soldier. Death is no longer a scary abstract concept, but rather something that he knows and sees regularly. Therefore, shooting his own dog is not as much of an absurdity as it would be to people like Cheryl. A moment that stayed with me from Raid illustrated the attitude towards death that might have made Sergeant Price comfortable with shooting his dog. Doc sums up his explanation on the different attitudes towards death by saying “death is life”(81). Because death is a part of war, it becomes part of the everyday lives of the soldiers. In a way, it seems that death materializes into something more than a scary fate in war.
ReplyDeleteYes, atrocities are definitely present in these stories because war itself is an atrocity. Of course, in both stories, the moments of people dying and the soldiers having to kill are atrocities. What I find “shockingly bad” or just most surprising and depressing is that although the soldiers outline war as a living hell, they long for it. Sergent Price says that he wishes to go back to a warzone because he feels he belongs there more than in the civilian world. Although I understand that war is incredibly complex and filled with good moments, I am always stunned when characters feel they can call a warzone home over their “normal” not at war life.
I agree with Charlotte that the theme of routine or being ritualistic connects the three stories. Having steps to follow is a way for the characters to cope with the unpredictability of war and the death in war. In "When Engaging Targets, Remember," “you” go through the prescribed way to shoot the vehicle. Although in the end, these steps are completely arbitrary. In Redeployment, Sergeant Price manages a very emotional situation by reverting back to the following instructions on how to shoot. In Raid, Doc is able to lose himself “in the ritual of preparation”(81) and distract himself from the atrocities of war.
I was struck by several moments, mostly agreeing with what other people have said above. For the sake of variety, in “Raid”, as the Rangers ride the helicopter into the raid, I was struck by the way, despite his doubts, the doctor fall back on his faith in both religion and the near-perfect feeling of emotional connection and trust he has with the team around him. However, it’s interesting that out of all the lines he could have quoted from the Lord’s Prayer, he pulls a line from the very end of it that isn’t even included in every version: “...the Power and the Glory, Forever and Ever, Amen.” Read one way, it’s the reason people go to war. This might be a reach, but to me, it also seems to reflect his earlier disillusionment to some degree; he claims that old returners like his captain are just in love with death and killing. There’s a brutal pragmatism to his view of the world along with a large dose of bitterness. Of course, he’s also a returner, and it’s possible he sees some of the same in himself. As he sees it, the war is not about some high ideals of democracy and stability, just power for individuals.
ReplyDeleteYes. Not only do we see acts of extreme brutality and cruelty on people outside of the military, whether it’s shooting the dogs, or the pictures of the young girl with a gun to her head, but the impact on the soldiers is an atrocity as well. For example, I think the raid is an example of atrocity as well. Their ultimate goal might be taking down an important target who’s killing people, but there’s a sense that underlying that is a massive waste of lives. This strike team is already on Charon 7 and will be back for Charon 8, because the target left. And in the process, Paul was killed. It’s all very Saving Private Ryan. War cheapens human life, and I don’t think the probable necessity of these actions makes it any less atrocious. It can be both at once. Perhaps a smaller atrocity prevents a bigger one, but even if the ends somehow justify the means, it certainly does not erase them.
I think all three stories have a sense of that inevitability. There’s choice that isn’t a choice at all in all three stories that I think comes down to duty. Even if they are questioning what they are supposed to do, their job dictates pretty rigidly what they have to do because the consequences of not being reliable is injury and death for themselves and those around them. It’s still a choice, I suppose, but the stakes are high. To paraphrase Omar, some motherfuckers kill, and some motherfuckers die, and inevitably, you have to be in one of those two categories, no matter what kind of humanity you think gets in the way.The doctor in “Raid” keeps going along and trying to save lives, even though he doesn’t want to be in Afghanistan at all; his opinion on the futility of the exercise or the crassness of it all does not matter as a soldier with a job of trying to save his fellow soldiers. “You” have to blow up the BMW or someone else will. Sgt. Price’s dog has to die and it might as well be him that does it because that’s his duty. And then they have to live with the consequences, just as inevitably. Even before shooting Vicar, Sgt. Price is stuck in “orange”. The doctor is tired and disillusioned after many deployments. And though we don’t see it, “you” have to live with shooting the BMW for the rest of your life and have the weight of it color your perception in a multitude of ways. I would go as far as to call all three stories tragedies. As Merriam Webster puts it, a tragedy is, “a serious drama typically describing a conflict between the protagonist and a superior force (such as destiny) and having a sorrowful or disastrous conclusion that elicits pity or terror.” In all three stories, the choices of all the protagonists are, to some extent, subsumed by the necessities of warfare.
1. In “Redeployment,” one particular part that stuck out to me was when the narrator described what “orange” was, and what it was like for a person to be in it. He describes his heightened senses, his constant state of alertness that was crucial to not only his success, but his survival. While I had heard of this on-edge concept in past readings, I had never heard it referred to with that specific name. I think that just goes to show exactly how little civilians like myself know about what happens in war; we think we know things through reading stores or watching films, but every time we hear something new, it is utterly apparent just how impossible it is to ever fully understand what soldiers go through without experiencing it ourselves firsthand. Ever since reading “Raid,” I haven’t been able to stop thinking about how desperate the narrator was to avoid looking at the wounded soldier’s face. He didn’t want to know who it was, even as he performed first aid on the bullet holes and missing limbs left by explosives. I think this definitely serves as a way to illustrate the disconnect between what a person in crisis may want to do, versus what they actually do in order to protect themselves from trauma. He doesn’t look to see his friend’s face even though he wants to, which is incredibly reminiscent of Kailani not asking her neighbor for the name of the woman that Manny has cheated on her with. Kailani is saving herself from the trauma and pain that she knows will come with knowing that information, just like the medic in this story.
ReplyDelete2. I think atrocity is found in almost any war setting. I don’t think war is possible without it. In “Redeployment” a man comes home to find that his wife has taken all of her belongings and is nowhere to be found. Not only is this man a traumatized veteran, but he now has to deal with an extremely upsetting life event. While I don’t know anything about Weissert’s relationship with his wife prior to her departure, one cannot deny that this man is now facing two incredibly difficult obstacles that will likely cause a lot of damage to his general well being if not handled properly. I think the absurdity here is just how unfortunately coincidental it is that a person would ever have to go through those two things at the same time. Not only does Weissert have to experience either; he is in the unfortunate and unique position of having to deal with both traumas at once.
3. Each of these three stories involve stressful, high pressure situations that require rapid decision-making with extremely high stakes, which is a connection that ties all three directly into the concept of a “true war story.” Civilian life involves so few of these “fight or flight”, “life or death” scenarios, and yet they are extremely fascinating to learn about and to listen to. In “When Engaging Targets, Remember,” the soldier is put in a position with complete control over the outcome, or at least he thinks so. As we read over each scenario, it is apparent that his decision does not affect the story’s finish at all. The high pressure is there, but it ends up not really mattering in the end. The same can be said for “Redeployment.” When the narrator decides to kill his dog, that is very much a life or death situation. Whether or not he chooses to kill the dog himself or have a veterinarian do it does not change whether or not the dog dies, but I think each possible choice holds a lot of emotional significance, and therefore says a lot about the character and about war in general. In “Raid,” the medic chooses not to look at the wounded soldier’s face. It doesn’t change whether or not he is able to administer first aid, and it does not change the fact that the man dies at the end of the story. But it says a lot about the medic and his own beliefs and values. He doesn’t want to see his friend like that, no matter how professional or serious the situation may be.
The imagery from both stories stayed with me. Specifically, the description of looking at the iron sights of an M-16 rifle and keeping the target blurry in your vision. In “Raid” the imagery of the black hawks yelling “kill, kill, kill” into the night with the chops of their propellers. These images stayed with me because of their specificity; they made me imagine—in great detail—what it would be like running through the woods to a MEDEVAC HLZ or clearing a city block “on orange.”
ReplyDeleteI would argue that no, these stories did not feature atrocity. I found that the most disturbing description of “Redeployment” was the scene where half a dozen marines opened fire on an insurgent swimming in a cesspool. In “Raid” I thought the most disturbing moment was when the local smirked and called the two EKIAs “associates.” I found this disturbing because he seemed so disillusioned and desensitized to the fact that he got those men, and an American, killed “just to make a buck.”
The connection present in all three stories is the imagery and how that imagery places the reader in the soldiers’ shoes, so to speak. In the “choose your own adventure” the description is all very specific and we are literally making the choices in the situation. In “Raid” the doctor’s internal dialogue about trying to save Peters made me see the man lying on the ground in front of me. In “Redeployment” the author describes all the tiny details of clearing a city street, even noticing a dime two blocks away.