Veterans

     Some say that all veterans somewhere, somewhere deep down, connect. Whether it is that they all had the same belief, that they should fight for their country, or they all experienced the same things whether it be combat or boot camp. But what really connects all veterans? Do they all really connect? I cannot say, for I am not a veteran, I have not been in combat or through a boot camp, but Tim O'Brien was. In fact O'Brien wrote a story on his experience in battle, his was in Vietnam. So can we connect other veterans stories to his? Are veterans from Iraq connected somehow to Tim O'Brien? I would say yes. Despite fighting in different wars, in different generations, with different technology and different motives, they still fought. Certainly just being in combat does not connect them, but after listening to their stories, it is the beliefs, the emotions that connect them. Both O'Brien, a Vietnam veteran, and Kobe Bazelle and Truman Muir, both Iraq veterans, spoke or wrote about their experiences. They connect in many ways, and through several different faucets, both in tangible and intangible experiences.  It isn't just going to war that makes these men connect, rather it is very different than just war that makes them similar. It is coming back from war, examining what happened and what they did that make them similar. How they returned from war and told their stories, that is how we can connect them.

   

Kobe Bazelle a machine gunner in Iraq was sitting in an auditorium full of soldiers when a hypothetical question was asked. The question was, "If you were driving under an overpass with women and children above you throwing rocks down at you, what do you do?"(Bazelle) There were two responses, "Light them up."(Bazelle) and the opposite. Bazelle pondered why women and children were involved in the question. If they were there for effect, or to see if answers changed. In the end it came down to, "It's better safe than sorry, better him dead than
you." (Bazelle) Tim O'Brien in his book, The Things They Carried, identifies with the same
answer, better him than you. Tim O'Brien talks of killing a man on a trail in My Khe, naturally his emotions were all over the place, but what made the kill ok? A friend Kiowa tells him, "Turn it all upside down- you want that? I mean, be honest." (Page 120, O'Brien) What Tim did is no different than the answer Bazelle found to be correct. You do what you have to do to live. Truman Muir spoke more of his actual combat. He spoke of his injury, the pain and agony, the hardships. O'Brien did the same. Muir when speaking about acquiring his foot injury says, "I shouldn't be worried about my foot while one of my best friends is dying." (Muir) What is it that Muir is trying to say through this. That you have to be there for others all the time, no matter the circumstances? Or is he trying to say that everyone is injured at some point, and sometimes being brave is too much. Soldier prepared to fireO'Brien seems to identify with the second option. He writes in his book of a young soldier who maybe just maybe, could have saved a life. He says, "He wished he could've explained some of this. How he had been braver than he ever thought possible, but how he had not been so brave as he wanted to be. " (Page 147 O'Brien) The distinction here is that being brave was going to war. The bravest thing was leaving home, facing a gun, holding one, being a soldier. But in the end everyone wishes the could've been braver. That they could've saved one man, or done one thing. And perhaps, that is how all veterans are related.