This was actually one of the more disturbing stories that
I read in this excellent short story collection from Tim O'Brien based on Vietnam and
the experiences of so many soldiers. In this short story, the narrator decides to get
even on a fellow soldier for his mistreatment of the narrator's condition. What is
disturbing about this story is the way that it presents the Vietnam war as an
opportunity for soldiers such as the narrator to scare their fellow soldiers and settle
perceived wrongs in a violent and disturbing fashion. His attempt to "kill" Jorgenson
and terrify him actually reveals a lot about the narrator himself. Note what Azar, the
soldier who is helping the narrator, says and does to the narrator when the trick was
discovered by Jorgenson and he realised that he was the victim of nothing more than a
childish prank:
"Well," he muttered, "show's over." He looked
down at me with a mixture of contempt and pity. After a second he shook his head. "Man,
I'll tell you something. You're a sorry, sorry case."
I was
trembling. I kept hugging myself, rocking, but I couldn't make it go
away.
What is interesting
about this story, then, is the way that pursuing vengeance against Jorgenson actually
reveals the kind of man that the narrator really is, and the way that vengeance actually
seems to impact the person pursuing that vengeance in some ways more than it does the
person who receives that vengeance. The narrator is revealed to be the "sad" person that
Azar kicks in the head as he leaves.
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