Cacciato: The Meaning of Courage

¶ … Cacciato: The meaning of courage and the courageous acts of soldiers

In the novel by Tim O'Brien, the soldier Paul Berlin learns that courage and being courageous has little to do with realizing military objectives and everything to do with finding our one's own, personal values. By Going After Cacciato, as the title of the work indicates, Berlin realizes that true courage is often resisting the false ideals presented by society, rather than blindly obeying commands to win and to kill at all costs.

Going After Cacciato is a novel that takes place in the form of several concurrent and parallel flashbacks. As Paul Berlin waits at an observation post while on duty as a sentry, he is remembering recent combat experiences. He also imagines the absconded Private Cacciato on a flight to Paris. Past, present, and presumed recollections of the fate of after the absconded soldier Cacciato are all fused into one, in Paul's mind, over the course of one night. At the beginning of Chapter 42, Paul Berlin muses that the Vietnam War is merely a war "like any war. No new messages. Stories that began and ended without transition. No developing drama or tension or direction. No order." This lack of order is reflected in Going After Cacciato's own structure as a text and reflects the chaotic notions of courage and patriotism of Paul Berlin's tortured soul.

Paul has come to admire Cacciato, despite Paul's own decision to risk life and limb to fight the war, and despite the fact that Paul came to Vietnam with a very different perspective on heroism. When he was a child, Paul had a very militaristic relationship with his own father that reinforced conventional notions of courage. He had fond childhood memories of playing Little Bear and Big Bear in Indian Guides with his father. But now, Paul sees Cacciato's flight as "a truly awesome notion," rather than the act of a coward as he, as the innocent 'Little Bear' might have before.

Ultimately, Paul sees Cacciato's flight to France, "not a dream, an idea. An idea to develop, to tinker with and build and sustain, to draw out as an artist draws out his visions."