Summary Of Where Have You Gone Charming Billy? 'By Tim O' Brien

Ripping of the Band Aid War to some people might be a little scary, but do they understand how scary it really is? In the short story “Where Have You Gone Charming Billy?”, by Tim O’Brien, it shows how truly scary war can be. For the people who have not served, we can not even understand the half of it. War might seem like nothing or it might be near and dear to your heart. People that have not served or had a relative fighting, probably do not know how scared you are twenty-four seven. Being a soldier is not all dress and no play, it’s real life. Most people might say that no soldier is scared. If anything they probably say nothing can phase them, but soldiers are afraid to. “Could not stop giggling, remembering: scared to death” (O’Brien 202). The soldier is scared that he is going to die. War is scary and every soldier deep down is probably terrified. Even though they put on a tough face, does not mean that they are not scared.

You are worried that you are going to step in the wrong place. “He walked carefully. He remembered what he’d been taught: stay off the center of the path, for that was where the landmines and booby traps were planted, where stupid and lazy soldiers like to walk” (O’Brien 199). Even if you are tired while at war, one wrong move and you could die. In America we can walk basically wherever but at war you can’t. No matter the training, you can never be totally ready for what will happen in war. “They hadn’t given any lessons in courage - not that he could remember - and they hadn’t mentioned how Billy Boy Watkins would die of a heart attacks, his face turning pale and veins popping out” (O’Brien 200). Even if you can watch a movie where someone is being burned at the steak that doesn’t mean when you smell human flesh that you will be okay. Tim O'Brien is trying to show us throughout the story what war is really like. Just because you might be a video game hero does not mean you can be a real life war