Phil Klay's Stereotypes In Redeployment

“How dark would you have to paint a vet to make him or her beyond sympathy” (Molin,Onward to DC–War Writing at AWP17). After returning from war, a veteran expects one thing which is sympathy. Veterans are stereotyped as these troubled men who are traumatized from the war. Peter Molin challenges this stereotype by questioning what a veteran needs to do to be viewed as more than just a traumatized war hero by saying what can makes a veteran “beyond sympathy.” Veterans are accustomed to being treated with sympathy due to the fact that civilians view them as troubled by the war, which is only a myth. Phil Klay’s book Redeployment challenges this stereotype by showing the readers that a veteran may or may not fall under the “trauma hero” stereotype

Klay’s short stories indicate how different war is for every soldier by containing a different narrator and plot for each story. The different stories show all sorts of different emotions such as fear, guilt, helplessness, and loss of oneself. Klay’s book repeatedly emphasizes the message that civilians will never be able understand a soldier’s experience, therefore civilians should reconsider whether sympathy is the proper way to treat a veteran. The idea that civilians must can only understand a veteran if they have experienced war leaves readers to question whether they truly understand a veterans war experience. Through Klay’s short stories “War Stories,” “After Action Report” and “Frago,” his characterization of certain characters, use of situational irony humor, and decision to have different narrators for every story allows civilians to become more familiar with different war experiences providing a better understanding on how war is a different experience for every

The different stories range from veterans on the battlefield to returning home providing the readers with an idea of their different experiences. He allows us to get a feel of what the veterans have been through, and how different war experiences are for each person. For example, one of the stories in Redeployment, “After Action Report” demonstrates what killing someone meant to a soldier. In the dialogue between the Marine Sniper and a journalist, the Journalist questions the marine about how it feels to kill a man. The marine replies, “ ‘Recoil’ That's not quite what I felt, shooting. I felt a kind of thrill”(Klay,47). The marine tells the journalist what the journalist expects of him when killing someone by saying he felt “recoil.” However he reveals to the readers that he enjoyed killing as it was a “thrill” to him. If the marine were to tell the journalist that he enjoyed killing, the journalist would feel uncomfortable with the fact that he enjoys killing. Klay demonstrates situational irony by making the readers think killing is a disgusting feeling to the marine; in reality it brings this marine a thrill. On the contrary, in Klay’s short story “Frago,” the veteran ,Dyer shows excitement at the thought of killing someone in the beginning. However, after Dyer gets his kill we learn how affected he is when he goes around