If I Die In A Combat Zone Analysis

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In the book, If I Die in a Combat Zone, the author Tim O'Brien argues that the Vietnam war challenged one's morality through his depictions of the war from a foot soldiers perspective and how the Vietnamese civilians were mistreated.

In the story O’Brien is a draftee, foot soldier who expresses his experience while fighting in the Vietnam war; however, by doing so he reveals that many moral confrontations are encountered, due to him being opposed to the war and his courage being questioned. Moreover, by providing his mindset and thoughts throughout the story O’Brien overall efficiently conveys the moral challenges the war impacted him with. For instance, O’Brien wanted to confront his battalion commander on how to go about his circumstance …show more content…

Inevitably, it is perceived throughout the story that the soldiers could not recognise who the true enemy was, due to the war being a civil war between North and south Vietnam, which meant everyone looked similar, so ultimately the military came to the conclusion that everyone was the enemy or “Charlie.” However, this collided with O'Brien's values of human life, because they believed that civilians should not take the responsibility of the war. Specifically, when the Alpha Company came across a village to rest and soon found a beat up AK-47 hidden in the bushes, thus they raided the village to try and find more weapons and afterwards the lieutenants selected three of the oldest men in the village to be restrained to a tree with rags in their mouths for the purpose of being safe from the enemy for the night (pg. 130). While it may be true, that some of the soldiers approved to forcibly tie the old men to the tree--since they were afraid the enemy will attack if not-- O’Brien and his Comrade conversed about how they did not want the old men to be beaten when interrogated and afterwards O’Brien let his mercy take over him and gave one of the men water (pg. 131). This gives the understanding that the military was not concerned about whether they were treating innocent people wrongly, rather that they were only concerned with protecting themselves from the opposition. Nevertheless, O’Brien was going against regulations when he gave one of the captives water, which provides evidence that the war was challenging his morals and in that situation he let them overcome him. On top of, O’Brien going against military rules to give his mercy to a vietnamese man is also

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