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Of Rifles, of Men and of War
Aug. 19th, 2007 11:24 pmI just saw Jarhead (link to it on IMDB), and it resulted in an urge to read Hemingway's "Soldier's Home" again. And as I can't find it, this is what I'll do instead: Of Rifles, of Men and of War:
Just like Hemingway (the trenches of WWI), Ron Kovic (Vietnam), Tim O'Brien (Vietnam) and Steve Mason (Vietnam, again) Swoff feels that something is changed when he returns home. The world is the same, but he can't quite fit in it like he used to. No matter what he does, loves or feels, he is in "the Suck", with his fellow Jarheads. Just like the soldier in The Things They Carried, that drives endlessly around a lake, or Krebs who can no longer pray, something is changed, not right. I wonder what that something is. What does war do to a young man?
And they all enlisted because, "well, there was nothing else to do".
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I think I told someone I'd dye my hair today, but that never happened. There was a lack of dye; I ended up listening to "Boats and Birds", crying. Back to school tomorrow, I'm ambivalent.
Just like Hemingway (the trenches of WWI), Ron Kovic (Vietnam), Tim O'Brien (Vietnam) and Steve Mason (Vietnam, again) Swoff feels that something is changed when he returns home. The world is the same, but he can't quite fit in it like he used to. No matter what he does, loves or feels, he is in "the Suck", with his fellow Jarheads. Just like the soldier in The Things They Carried, that drives endlessly around a lake, or Krebs who can no longer pray, something is changed, not right. I wonder what that something is. What does war do to a young man?
And they all enlisted because, "well, there was nothing else to do".
-----
I think I told someone I'd dye my hair today, but that never happened. There was a lack of dye; I ended up listening to "Boats and Birds", crying. Back to school tomorrow, I'm ambivalent.
