Die In A Combat Zone: Box Me Up And Ship Me, By Tim O Brien

In the novel, If I Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me, the author, Tim O’Brien, takes the reader through his own personal experience as a soldier during the Vietnam War. Not only did O’Brien describe the disturbing and horrific incidents he encountered in Vietnam, but he also gave his opinion about the war. He strongly believed that the war was both immoral and unjust. “The war, I thought, was wrongly conceived and poorly justified”(O’Brien 1975, 18). Though he believed the war was unjust, O’Brien still served his duty in Vietnam. But as O’Brien evolved as a soldier in Vietnam, he constantly struggled to identify and define what it meant to be courageous in Vietnam. Therefore, throughout the novel, O’Brien eventually discovered that

Being a foot soldier in Vietnam often prompted soldiers to be scared of death due to the possibility of stepping on a mine. “Eyes sweep the rice paddy. Don’t walk there, too soft. Not there, dangerous, mines. Step there and there and there, not there, step there and there, careful, careful, watch”(O’Brien 1975, 26). Not only was O’Brien scared of death, he wondered what death felt like. “Mostly, though, you wonder about dying. You wonder how it feels, what it looks like inside you”(O’Brien 1975, 70). Though some soldiers in Vietnam were courageous, some soldiers such as O’Brien worried about and were scared of death. Though O’Brien feared death and thus saw himself as a coward for it, he realized after conversing with Captain Johansen, that Johansen was courageous. As Captain Johansen said, “’I’d rather be brave than almost anything’”(O’Brien 1975, 134). With that quote, O’Brien not only admired Captain Johansen for acting bravely, but also admired him because Johansen knew that death was always a possibility for his actions. Moreover, as he continued to speak with Johansen, O’Brien understood that the fear of death was something that he needed to overcome in order to be courageous. O’Brien praised Captain Johansen for his valor. Captain Johansen understood that even though there were reasons to be scared such as death, he acted accordingly trying to overcome that fear in order to

Throughout the novel, O’Brien struggled to overcome the fear of being a coward. Even before going to Vietnam, the fear of cowardice influenced his decision on deserting or joining the war. “I simply couldn’t bring myself to flee. Family, the home town, friends, history, tradition, fear, confusion exile: I could not run…I was a coward”(O’Brien 1975, 68). Moreover, as O’Brien questioned the uncertain reasons about the war, he realized he was indeed a coward. “The conviction seemed right. And, if right, was my apparent courage in enduring merely a well-disguised cowardice?”(O’Brien 1975, 138-139). O’Brien firmly believed that the war was unjust and had uncertain reasons, but he still went and fought in Vietnam. Though some may see this as courageous, he saw it as cowardice since he was fighting a war that he believed was unjust and thus he was going against what he believed in, that he should of fled instead of fighting in Vietnam. O’Brien saw courage as how Plato and Socrates defined it, “Courage is nothing to laugh at, not if it is proper courage and exercised by men who know what they do is proper. Proper courage is wise courage. It’s acting wisely, acting wisely when fear would have a man act otherwise”(O’Brien 1975, 136), he therefore knew that he was indeed a coward. His fear of cowardice was so strong and overwhelming that he was unable to act wisely. He not only fought in a