Tim O\'Brien for Author Tim

¶ … Tim O'Brien

For author Tim O'Brien, war is a wound that never heals. We often hear the typical phrases associated with wars that have been repeated some many times that they have lost their meaning. O'Brien captures new nuances connected to war that allow us to see how truly transforming an agent it can be. From the inner turmoil that afflicts soldiers in the field, to the gripping notion of courage that is attached to the war without any real logic to it, to the simple notion of war and what that does to people that have tried to avoid it at all costs. Tim O'Brien's life and times are about the human experience of war and how it reshapes people and attitudes without fear and without warning. War is a transformational experience and no one coming out of war will be the same as he or she was as going in. In The Things They Carried, O'Brien takes us into the mind of the soldier that is on the field fighting unseen enemies for an unknown cause. His images reveal the lost hope the soldiers felt on a daily basis. In If I Die in a Combat Zone, courage is approached from a perspective that is not directly related to standing the field shooting at an unseen enemy. Instead, courage is seen as something only smart, thinking men can have -- it is not something that is awarded to them just because they shot a gun in a war. In The Nuclear Age, we see a man that must live with war from another perspective in that he is afraid of it reaching him even though he evaded the war he was meant to fight. Tim O'Brien creates a new way to look at war and what it does to people through his compelling stories. War is never easy and it is never simply war.

Thomas Myers notes that the Vietnam War "produced a major emotional crisis" (Myers) for O'Brien. O'Brien found the war "morally reprehensible and emotionally unacceptable" (Myers) and considered going to Canada or even going to jail to avoid the war. This fear is something that is crippling in many aspects. O'Brien decides to face the war and his experiences emerge masterfully in The Things They Carried. The narrator in this novel presents the mental anguish brought on by war and exposes it as perhaps more deadly than the physical aspects of war. The emotional baggage weighed the men down more than any other Things They Carried. We read the men carried "Grief, terror, love, longing . . . They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained . . . Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to . . . It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor. Rather, they were too frightened to be cowards" (O'Brien Things They Carried 21, 22). War does strange things to people and we see this best demonstrated through the character of Mary Anne, who becomes a victim of the jungle. The war's effect on her is striking only because when she arrived she was wearing culottes and a "sexy pink sweater" (90). She expressed an unusual interest in the people and the land and was quick to pick up new and strange ideas relating to war. We read that she was not afraid "to get her hands bloody. At times, in fact, she seemed fascinated by it. Not the gore so much but the adrenaline buzz that went with the job" (98). She also "quickly fell into the habits of the bush. No cosmetics, no fingernail filing. She stopped wearing jewelry, cut her hair short and wrapped it in a dark green bandanna" (98). Soon she goes on ambushes and becomes involved with the ways of the Green Berets. Mary Anne represents the innocence lost and the emotional drain that come with war.

Another aspect of the war that affected O'Brien and eventually surfaced in his writing was the notion of courage. He comes to the conclusion that the word is not easy to define and it generally means different things to different people, depending upon their circumstances. In If I Die in a Combat Zone, O'Brien writes, "Courage is nothing to laugh at, not if it is proper courage and exercised by men who know what they do is proper" (O'Brien Combat Zone 133). This requires thought, in O'Brien's opinion and he writes in the novel that if we do not think, we are not being human. In short, it takes a little bravery to think about things in a serious manner and this includes our thoughts regarding courage. O'Brien writes, "Proper courage is wise courage (133) and it is also acting "wisely when fear would have a man act otherwise. It is the endurance of the soul in spite of fear -- wisely" (133). Courage is not something that can be conjured up on a whim, in O'Brien's estimation. It comes from coherent thinking and he writes, "Men must know what they do is courageous" (137), adding that they "must know it is right, and that kind of knowledge is wisdom and nothing else" (137). In O'Brien's opinion, bravery is not related to how one acts in the field. Bravery is described powerfully when O'Brien states, "Either they are stupid and do not know what is right . . . Or they know what is right and cannot bring themselves to do it. Or they know what is right and do it, but do not feel and understand the fear that must be overcome" (137). Firing a rifle in a war just because you have a gun does not make one smart, brave or courageous. "Grace under pressure means you can confront things gracefully or squeeze out of them gracefully. But to make those two things equal with the easy word "grace" is wrong. Grace under pressure is not courage" (If I Die 142-143)