If I Die In A Combat Zone: Box Me Up And Ship Me Home By Tim O Brien

In the book If I Die In A Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me Home, author Tim O’Brien showed that the Vietnam War was wrong and felt like hell. He supported his claim by exposing the brutality of war, showing the injustice of it, explaining the arrogance of the war plus the men who fight in them, and how the war was physically, emotionally, and mentally damaging to the soldiers. First, Tim O’Brien showed that the Vietnam War was wrong and hell-like by exposing the brutality of it. An example of this would be with all the blood, injuries, and the deaths that the soldiers witnessed while fighting on the battlefield. During war, Mad Mark showed Private O’Brien a fresh human ear unwrapped in a bunch of cloth (Chapter 6). Although, the ear did

For example, an old Vietnamese man, who was blind and a farmer, helped the soldiers by letting them use his well for water. The blind and old Vietnamese man was generous enough to even give one of the soldiers a shower but another soldier decided to be extremely egotistic and threw a carton of milk for no reason, aiming for the old man and hitting him in the face (Chapter 10). After that happened, none of the soldiers even tried to help the old man which shows how rude and selfish soldiers were. Another example of an arrogant attitude would be Mad Mark towards his soldiers. Mad Mark was known as the platoon leader, a first lieutenant, and a Green Beret (Chapter 8). His personality consists of being very confident, incredibly calm, and he never showed fear but since that was how he was a person, he trained his soldiers to become confident during war. Mad Mark believed that war was necessary to have peace and he was also full of himself and confident because all he would be carrying was a shotgun which did not even shoot that far. He believed that he must hit one with one shot, which is the first shot, and that shot must kill the enemy (Chapter

The war was physically damaging to them because the soldiers would end up getting shot or blown up by grenades which would result in losing a body part or if it ends up being really bad, the soldier would pass away (Chapter 13). It was also damaging emotionally because soldiers would sometimes see their friends die right in front of them because they risked their life in order to save others. Furthermore, death was not the only action that was damaging physically and emotionally but also the fact that they could not keep a steady girlfriend because they did not have time for relationships but only had time for one night stands. For example, O’Brien only had a few more days left in Vietnam and during that time, he thought about a girl (Chapter 9). He said so himself that finding a girl was hopeless but he had continued to visualize one in order to keep himself sane (Chapter 9). Visualizing a girl’s face and imagining a relationship messed with the soldier’s mental health. Another example of the war being mentally damaging to the soldiers is the fact that they would not know when the enemy would attack. It is the stress of not knowing when or if they end up getting mortared or getting ambushed in the middle of the night that would also mess with their mental