Soldiers are dreamers

Alright... its time for me to sit down and finally write a post on Going After Cacciato, a novel by Tim O'Brien about the men in the Vietnam war and how they coped (or didn't). Although I technically finished the book on Saturday, its taken me four days just to get my thoughts together to try and write a cogent review. Well, more specifically, even though the book is a lot to take intellectually, its rather tough on the emotional side as well. Tim O'Brien does such a good job at crafting really believable, human characters that reading about their suffering and deaths is not particularly easy. Plus, because about half the story takes place in one of the character's imagination, which means that I spent a fair amount of time confused (see this post). After each chapter I had to pause and spend a few minutes thinking, which slowed down the reading considerably.
In brief, the book is about a soldier, Paul Berlin, who is stationed at an observation post, and keeps watch throughout the night. Another soldier in his platoon, Cacciato, decides to go AWOL, headed for Paris. About half of the book takes place in Paul Berlin's imagination as he accompanies his platoon to Paris, chasing after Cacciato, but there are plenty of flashbacks to things that really did happen. And lots of war stories. There was a lot to think about, but I'll mention 5 things that I wrote down in my black book of thoughts that struck me as worth spending more time thinking about...
1. At one point in his imagined tale, the platoon ends up in jail... an almost inescapable predicament, because they have no money or passports, and are scheduled to die the next morning. Paul Berlin seems unable to immediately work a way out of this scenario, and says:

"You could run, but you couldn't outrun the consequences of running.Not even in
imagination."

I'll admit that I'm somewhat of an escapist myself, which is likely why this little phrase stuck out. And, rather than the hang-in-there sort of cat hanging on a wash line message, but just a realistic reason to not run away from things...

2. The advice Paul Berlin's father gave him before he left:

You'll see some terrible stuff, sure, but try to look for the good things.
Try to learn.

Which I think is pertinent advice not only for being in Vietnam, but also making it through the day. Although I feel fairly skilled at the trying to learn part, I need to keep working on the looking for the good business. Which is really one of the most poignant messages about the book... if Paul Berlin can keep his head somewhat together in the middle of a war-torn jungle, I should be able to do it while I'm sitting on my couch in my pajamas.

3. There is an interesting imaginary conversation that Paul Berlin has with a Vietnamese girl who he is trying to help. Paul is trying to understand how the Vietnamese feel about the war, and wants her to understand that he was just following orders, was drafted, and doesn't really know what's going on any more than she does. But, in the conversation he asks:

What did she want? How did she see the war? What were her aims - peace, any
peace, peace with dignity? ... Peace and quiet? Peace and pride? Peace with
mashed potatoes and Swiss steak and vegetables, a full-tabled peace, indoor
plumbing, a peace with Oldsmobiles and Hondas and skyscrapers climbing from the fields , a peace of order and harmony and murals on public buildings?

More on peace to come in item #5, but I'm going chronologically in the book, so this quote will occupy the #3 position...

4. Paul Berlin learns some important lessons from his time in Vietnam:

It hurts to be shot. Dead men are heavy. Don't seek trouble, it'll find you
soon enough.

In times of extreme stress, life tends to boil down to a few simple facts like this.

5. And finally:

As happiness is not just the absence of sadness, peace is not just the
absence of war.

I find the concept of "peace" interesting... Is not being attacked regularly the definition of peace? Does peace imply freedom? Can people be forced to live in peace? Would people choose to live in peace without being forced to? Lots of questions to keep pondering...

So... this post is getting terribly long... The book is tough, a little slow, and somewhat confusing (particularly in the beginning), but I think there's a lot of good stuff in there that makes it worth the effort.