Essay Questions

Taylor observes that even after war is over, it continues in the minds and the lives of those who experienced it. What does he mean by this?

War is a political animal. It has a definite beginning, and a finite end, both of which are decided upon by leaders and politicians from all of the nations involved. For those at the political, almost abstract, end of a war, there is a sense of removal from the dirty business of war on the ground. This is why it is easy for them to switch off, to draw a line underneath the "war years" and to move on to forging new peacetime relationships with their former enemies.

For the men and women on the ground, who are experiencing the horrors of war, switching it off and drawing a line underneath their experiences may not be quite so easy. It is almost impossible to unring a bell; they cannot un-see what they have seen. They cannot deal with the lives they have taken in the cold light of peacetime as they could when they were in the middle of the fighting, and it was "kill or be killed". Soldiers tell of faces they cannot get out of their mind, scenes that are burned into their memory, and fears that they can never shake even when they are safe back at home again. Taylor has realized that even though he and his platoon are heading home, and their tour of duty has come to an end, what they have experienced will be with them forever and they will never really be able to leave it behind.

With the possible exception of Bunny, none of the men would be likely to kill anyone in the lives they have built back at home; why do they seem so eager to kill in Vietnam?

The men in the platoon are not cold hearted killers; they are men with families, jobs, lives to go back to. They are the men in the street, the men next to us in line at the grocery store. Normal, average, men. At least, this is who they are when they are not threatened, or mentally affected by the horrors going on around them. In a war environment, they begin to mentally unravel. They are in a terrifying and life threatening situation, constantly suspicious, almost brainwashed by their situation. Once they have killed, they are unable to process what they have done, which makes them almost addicted to the kill in of itself. When they first arrive, their killing is limited to the process of war; they shoot the enemy, the enemy shoots back, and vice versa.

Gradually, they begin to spiral out of control. They kill civilians because they hate them for being part of the nation that killed their brothers. They kill because the civilians are defenseless, and they are feeling pretty powerless themselves. They begin to act violently towards each other because they are mentally changed and beaten down by the things they are experiencing. They are beginning to snap. The killing spree they are embarking on is also unusual in that the men have not become crazy psychopaths. Once home again, they will not be stalking innocent citizens, or devolving into murderous activity. Their need to kill is specifically related to their situation, and once they are removed from the situation, they will no longer have the urge to kill anyone.