Private First Class Paul Berlin Quotes And Analysis

Either war and violence is obsolete or all mankind is. Private First Class Paul Berlin is scared for his life and haunted by the thought of war, being in Vietnam is not anywhere someone wants to be at this time and he finds himself right in the middle of it. Trudging through swamp, mud and soaked, lush forest isn't something you want to find yourself doing, especially with imminent threats of attack. Private Berlin´s platoon is on their way to their own ¨safe escape¨, the ocean is a sign of safety and security for the soldiers. After the death of Billy Boy, the entire platoon and especially Paul Berlin is haunted by his passing, scared of the possibilities to come. War brings about many things. War and violence can and will desensitize anyone

Paul is haunted by the death of Billy Boy, he fears the same could and will happen to him. As a way to cope and overcome his fear, he tries to find humor in the fact of Billy Boy dying, and he does. Laughing hysterically he is told multiple times by a platoon member to shut up, but his fear has gotten the best of him, he cannot stop. ¨Giggling and remembering, he covered his mouth. His eyes stung, remembering how it was when Billy Boy died of fright,¨ (69). War scared the Private to such a point that it caused him to begin laughing uncontrollably and hysterically, he had to divert his attention somehow, why not with the natural escape of humor? Since Berlin was so frightened by the thought of war, death, and injury he desensitized himself to such a point where he found humor in the death of a fellow platoon member, soldier, fellow American, and human. In order to find something funny that is of the utmost level of seriousness takes either a lot of disrespect or a major amount of fright of the subject at hand. People even in today's society find humor in the small things when mass violence, deaths, and wars occur. They pick apart the stories to find one thing that they can find funny, so they can say ¨that was horrible, BUT did you see this¨, in a way it can take away the focus from the incident. If someone doesn't want to think or talk about a touchy subject they may find something that could be found humorous to divert eh conversation. Though their intentions are not bad they can result in desensitizing themselves without even wanting to. Just being open about a topic can prevent us from putting a lid on a situation and stop us from seeing things for the better rather than for what the truly are. The world needs to come out of its shell and see the planet and humankind for what we truly are, and what