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Analysis Of If I Die In A Combat Zone By Tim O Brien

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In If I Die In A Combat Zone author Tim O'Brien states that the Vietnam war was a horrible place and time to be a part of by showing the gruesome violence of the war, the horrible living conditions of the war and lastly the amount of casualties that resulted from the war.
O’Brien in the book reveles to the readers on several occasions how unorthodox the war in Vietnam was. This was already a pretty common consensus about the war but in the book it really drives the point home with countless scenes of violence and hostel imagery. A good example of this would be when the soldiers witness one of their comrades getting shot right in the buttox and the bullet comes out the other other end and out though the crotch area leaving puddles of blood …show more content…

This would also toy with american soldiers minds in that it made they extremely paranoid and afraid to trust anyone who claimed to be an ally. A very clear description of the soldiers dealing with these paranoid thoughts is when a soldier tells how even one of the pretty, innocent vietnamese girls could end up being a part of the enemy forces and they worst part for the soldier was that it would be practically impossible to tell otherwise. (Ch. 13) This aspect of war happened in other wars in the past but the Vietnam war made this type of combat all to frequent casueing a lot of soldiers to return home from serving in the war with mental illnesses like PTSD just from the sheer amount of paranoia and violence they were constantly exposed …show more content…

There comes a point were the soldiers describes the weather and conditions in vietnam and they describe it as being extremely hot and humid in the day and cold at night. They often fight in rice patties which is a main food source for the vietnamese and is grown in water that is ankle deep so the soldiers would have to be in this water causing all kinds for horrible living conditions, like them having swollen feet and limbs as well as catching diseases and sicknesses. (Ch. 9) Also another factor that adds to their awful conditions were the mosquitoes. Even though it's just a small insect they become a menace to the soldiers there and not to mention they often carry diseases and bacteria on them to in turn they get the soldiers sick. As if they didn’t have enough to deal with just fighting the vietnamese

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In the chapter when he describes the man he kills, he talks about the state of the dead body by saying, “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole…the skin at his left cheek was peeled back in three ragged strips, his right cheek was smooth and hairless, there was a butterfly on his chin, his neck was open to the spinal cord and the blood there was thick and shiny and it was this wound that had killed him” (O’Brien Chapter 11). This brutal and horrifying imagery displays an irrefutable element of truth to O’Brien’s writing. Not only does this imagery highlight the truth to his writing, but it also sheds light on the brutal truth about the war in Vietnam. By using imagery as such a strong rhetorical device in his writing, he gives the average person a taste of just how barbaric and cruel Vietnam felt for the people who experience the war first hand on either side of the fighting. Tim O’Brien gives a very detailed and intense description of his time fighting in Vietnam during their war with America.

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