Running Off To War Analysis

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While fighting in a war and returning home in one piece often brings a sense of pride to the soldiers in it, Hollywood creates an illusion of glory using movies and videogames as its medium. Action packed war movies give the viewers the impression that war is an adrenaline filled joyride. In reality it’s anything but. Hollywood takes advantage of the war subject, because it isn’t often talked about or seen on mass media. Running off to war is no movie, and it should be known as the task everyone fears about. There isn’t a happy movie worthy ending in war. More often than not, they die in action, or they have to live with the guilt of killing another human for the rest of their lives. The younger generation of America has been blindfolded from …show more content…
The irony is first noted when Paul encounters the cemetery on his march through the paddies of Vietnam, and he finds it to be a comforting place to make battlements. Paul explains that the cemetery has a “perfumey smell”, “the mounds would make fine battlements”, and it was “a nice place to spend the night”(O’Brien 66) . What the reader may see as a scary place to be, Paul sees as a safehaven. It’s ironic that Paul wants to sleep in a cemetery, while most people would get a bone chilling feeling while just being in a cemetery. While the setting of the Vietnam was a breed of scary all its own, Paul’s platoon member Billy Watkins was literally scared to death on the warfront. During the previous afternoon, Billy was killed from a fright induced heart attack. No gun fire, no disease, just a measly heart attack. A fellow platoon member asks Paul, “Old Billy Boy croaking over a lousy heart attack… heart attack, can you believe it?”(O’Brien 67). A fellow platoon member finds Billy’s death to be quite lousy for being a soldier in war. Many of the soldiers had a good laugh about this, however it truly shows that what is a cliche in America (being scared to death) is a reality on a war front. Later, towards the end of the short story, Paul found himself laughing uncontrollably at Billy’s lousy death. Not only did Paul find this to be funny- Paul couldn’t control his …show more content…
Paul’s account of the war displays fears and horrors that nobody should have to experience. The war has completely twisted and destroyed Paul’s mind to a stage of early psychosis. What kind of human with decent morals would laugh at another platoon members death? Paul laughed. While the soldiers minds are being damaged on a day to day basis, where they are fighting does certainly not help their situation. Imagine the most vile, disgusting, stomach turning thing you have ever saw. Your disgusting object you chose wouldn’t even phase as a threat to a Vietnam War Veteran. What Paul witnessed in a couple hours of being a soldier could probably give you nightmares. These scenarios are awful, but the safety of these soldiers is always out of the question. These soldiers will never feel safe within war, and the soldiers may not feel safe when they arrive home either. They will always be tipping on a teeter-totter of stress and mental integrity due to the psychological damage the war caused. Unfortunately for the soldiers of war, this is life for them. Before you pop in that new war movie that is all the rage, just think of the real soldiers that fought in that war. Hollywood gives soldiers in movie a sense of glory, while being a soldier in a real war doesn’t give the soldiers even a fraction of the glory that Hollywood portrays them to
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