Spin

Spin

When I read the line in Tim O’Brien’s The Things they Carried “All that peace, man, it felt so good it hurt. I just want to hurt it back.” I had a hard time trying to decipher what the author was saying. I believe you really have to think hard about what the man has gone through and how the war has changed him, to understand the true meaning of what he’s saying. The man had just been recuperating at a secure facility, away from the chaos of the war, with a beautiful Red Cross nurse, and then all of a sudden all he wants to do is return to the war, suffer sleepless nights behind enemy lines, living under the constant threat of being blown up from a land mine or shot in the head. From the security and and comfort of our bed from which we are reading this book, the comment seems absolutely ludicrous, but that’s because we haven’t shared the same experiences as the soldiers that fought day in and day out in the unforgiving jungles of Vietnam and now longs to return to the danger. One of the main problems soldiers have always faced and still face today is the challenge of re-adjusting to the dull, peaceful civilian life after fighting in a war. After living under such intense conditions these men have almost all accepted the fact that at any moment they might be blown to pieces or shot in the head.These men have already accepted death and they are willing to sacrifice their lives for their country and their beliefs. But when their tour of duty is completed or they are sent to a military hospital they are unprepared for the peace and tranquility, they are so unaccustomed to the peace that it hurts. These trained killing machines would rather be suffering the out in the front lines than be resting in a hospital with a lovely nurse and anything they wanted.
What I believe this quote says about peace is that it is only a concept embraced by civilians and that actual soldiers would rather be putting their lives in danger than be stuck in a peaceful hospital. Though this view of peace is not one that is accepted by all soldiers, that is how Tim O’Brien portrays peace in the book. What this tells us about the Vietnam War is that after fighting for so long in a hostile environment such as Vietnam, these men have all gained a certain respect and love for the pain and discomfort and that it took many men who probably never imagined themselves as soldiers such as Tim O’Brien, and turned them into fighters and killers. In this book we can see how the draft would take boys that would never consider killing another man, and then turn them into these creatures that just couldn't get enough of the pain and wanted to keep fighting. Though this man might seem courageous for returning to the front lines even after he’s been injured, I believe all he really is is just a boy whose sense of reasoning has been greatly distorted by the war.