Chapter 20: The Ghost Soldiers

What does “The Ghost Soldiers” add to the book that we have almost completed? Does it provide any new insights, perspectives, or experiences about any of the characters? What do you think its function in the overall narrative might be?

• “The Ghost Soldiers”  adds a new perspective that is not much discussed throughout the book. It adds the accounts of O’Brien’s attitudes towards the other soldiers. O’Brien recalls that he was shot twice. During and after his treatment, O’Brien appreciates Kiley’s skill, courage, and ease. When O’Brien is shot the second time, Jorgenson ( a different medic) is incapable of treating his shock, and the result is a painful experience for O’Brien in his lower area. O’Brien recalls this experience when he says “at night I had to sleep on my belly. That doesn’t sound so terrible until you consider that I’d been a back-sleeper all my life… I’d squirm around, cussing, half nuts with pain, and pretty soon I’d start remembering how Bobby Jorgenson had almost killed me” (O’Brien 183). The realization that he was near death for no good reason leaves O’Brien angry—he vows to exact revenge on Jorgenson. O’Brien begins resenting Jorgenson for making him feel guilty. At night, O’Brien and Azar decided to carry out their plan against Jorgenson by setting up flares. O’Brien speaks in specific terms about getting shot—he leads us through the experience and makes it real for us—the pain of being shot is a survivable pain. O’Brien realizes that the actual pain surrounding a wound is nowhere near as frightening as grappling with the notion of being shot. The entire experience shows just how vengeful O’Brien could be and how little Azar cared for the well-being of others, since he was willing to keep harming Jorgenson. At the same time, Jorgenson is seen as the victim and someone who is willing to forgive while O’Brien is villainized by his fellow comrades. The whole point of this story was just to show that in war, there are no “good guys” and “bad guys”, heroes and villains, there is only the war and how it changes you into someone else.

Does your opinion of O'Brien change throughout the course of the novel? How so? How do you feel about his actions in “The Ghost Soldiers”?

• I would be lying if I said that my opinion of O’Brien stayed the same. At first, I just saw O’Brien as the storyteller, someone who had survived the war and was still keeping it alive in his mind. Yet, as he told this story from his point of view, I began to see him as part of the story rather than the one telling it. He became a character who I questioned. I started asking myself why he would seek revenge if he knew that war was a scary thing. Personally, I would have probably froze the way Jergenson did, due to fear and anxiety. It’s not like Jergenson left him to die, he did actually help, but not when O’Brien wanted it. O’Brien’s grudge was irrational and what he was willing to do was not right.  Setting up those flares not only put them at risk of enemy fire, but almost scared Jergenson to death. However, I do understand that being a soldier hardens people, it toughens them up, and emotions are something that fade, if not vanish entirely. 

“The Ghost Soldiers” is one of the only stories of The Things They Carried in which we don't know the ending in advance. Why might O'Brien want this story to be particularly suspenseful?

• The obvious answer to this question is that this story in particular was about the author himself and his experience, his emotions, and his point of view. He wasn’t just going to make it like all of the other stories in the book. He wanted to make it suspenseful, not only for the reader’s entertainment, but for the readers to be able to distinguish him as the author and as a character in the story. Being the narrator makes O’Brien seem like an innocent person telling the tales of fallen soldiers. However, as a character in the story, O’Brien is portrayed as having  a short fuse and a vengeful personality. It creates a border between reality and the story.

Explain the significance of the title of this chapter.

• O'Brien tells readers how they "called the enemy ghosts. Bad night, we'd say, the ghosts are out. To get spooked, in the lingo, meant not only to get scared but to get killed”(202) This idea, that the enemy are ghosts, likely inspired his plan for revenge upon Jorgenson, given the use of the otherworldly looking sandbags. Not only that, but Jorgensen knew who his attackers were, but couldn’t see them, much like how one can’t see ghosts. 

Reflection:

In this chapter, O’Brien describes his experience of getting shot and holding a grudge against Jorgenson for almost getting him killed. This grudge causes him to want revenge on Jorgenson, which leads to a prank that both O’Brien and Azar plan to use to scare Jorgenson.  He didn’t need to feel those emotions, since it wasn’t Jorgenson’s fault that he got shot, but he still held resentment. It is clear that O’Brien felt embarrassment and humiliation from getting wounded, leading to pent-up resentment and hostility all focused on Jorgenson. "O'Brien" admits that he misses his company, whom he considers "close friends," and all of these feelings of loss are converted into anger toward Jorgenson. Like Curt Lemon and Rat Kiley, O’Brien has wartime fears that are sometimes more acute than the actual pain of war itself. O’Brien speaks in specific terms about getting shot—he leads us through the experience and makes it real for us—in order to illustrate that despite the movies and war legends, the pain of being shot is a survivable pain. Like Curt Lemon, whose fear of pain finds him provoking a dentist into pulling his tooth, O’Brien realizes that the actual pain surrounding a wound is nowhere near as frightening as grappling with the notion of being shot. Thus, once again repeating a consistent moral in the chapters, that mental anguish is worse than physical pain. On a side note, the most important pieces of this book are set at night. It is roaming around at night that "O'Brien" feels the sharpest pangs of hatred and yearnings for revenge against Jorgenson, it is at night that he hangs out with his old company and discovers how things have changed, and it is at night that he enacts his revenge against Jorgenson. This chapter and the following one, "Night Life," both deal with how the night affects people. To O'Brien, the world is different at night: The stifling darkness is maddening and intoxicating, able to confuse and weaken a soldier emotionally/mentally. It is at night that Vietnam comes alive — not the country as much as the experience of being a soldier.