Close Reading of a Passage - Blog Post #5

A Close Reading of a Passage

Check out this cute happy baby water buffalo. If it does not auto play, click here.

You Tube caption: Baby buffalo playing in the paddy fields in Hoi nam Dang - Thailand.

… we came across a baby VC water buffalo. What it was doing there I don't know – no farms or paddies – but we chased it down and got a rope around it and led it along to a deserted village where we set up for the night. After supper Rat Kiley went over and stroked its nose.
He opened up a can of C rations, port and beans, but the baby buffalo wasn't interested.
Rat shrugged.
He stepped back and shot it through the right front knee. The animal did not make a sound. It went down hard, then got up again, and Rat took careful aim and shot off an ear. He shot it in the hindquarters and in the little hump at it's back. He shot it twice in the flanks. It wasn't to kill; it was to hurt. He put the rifle muzzle up against the mouth and shot the mouth away. Nobody said much. The whole platoon stood there watching, feeling all kinds of things, but there wasn't a great deal of pity for the baby water buffalo. Curt Lemon was dead. Rat Kiley had lost his best friend in the world. Later in the week he would write a long personal letter to the guy's sister, who would not write back, but for now it was a question of pain. He shot off the tail. He shot away chunks of meat below the ribs. All around us there was the smell of smoke and filth and deep greenery, and the evening was humid and very hot. Rat went into automatic. He shot randomly, almost casually, quick little spurts in the belly and butt. Then he reloaded, squatted down and shot it in the left front knee. Again the animal fell hard and tried to get up, but this time it couldn't quite make it. It wobbled and went down sideways. Rat shot it in the nose. He bent forward and whispered something, as if talking to a pet, then he shot it in the throat. (O'Brien 74-75 bold for emphasis added.)

I found this passage in O'Brien's book deeply disturbing. What's the main point of this passage as well as the book as a whole? War really messes people up! I am by no means a vegetarian. I'm not an animal activist, but I don't agree with killing as a sport, or a way to blow off steam. I'm OK with it if you intend to eat the animal, or if it has to be done for protection. This book has many instances of brutal mind altering war related violence, but this one struck me as the most senseless, shameful, disturbing, and reflective of how the soldiers were loosing themselves. It would not have been condoned in any other setting, other than war.

The fact that the soldiers had to designate the animal as a “VC water buffalo”, showed that in order to justify this in their own minds they had to designate that this animal was a VC, and therefore an extension of the enemy. The text states that the shooter wasn't trying to kill the animal, just cause it pain, because he was in pain. This is not the same as squeezing your husbands hand off while you are in labor. In my opinion pain transference is unattainable this way, but the soldier is hurting too deeply emotionally to think straight. The text also seems to elude to the fact that they felt like this animal had no business being there, and seemed to be provided as some sort of sacrificial animal just because they could not see any other reason for it to be there other than to be their target. This same sentiment is reinforced later in the next paragraph by references to the fact that the animal never made any noise, not even after the shooting began – like a sacrificial lamb being led to the slaughter. The cold calculated way the shooter was harming this animal in and of itself is disturbing. He took his time, enjoying it – sick! I would not have wanted to be one of the soldiers that was standing by watching it happen. The text states, “The whole platoon stood there watching, feeling all kinds of things, but there wasn't a great deal of pity for the baby water buffalo.” (O'Brien 75) There wasn't a great deal of pity shown for the baby water buffalo, but perhaps some were feeling it, and were too afraid to say or do anything out of fear that they could then become the focus of this violent outburst. Many soldiers feel you are either for them or against them, regardless of what they do. If you go against that one person, especially if they are one of the leaders, the whole rest of the platoon may turn against you. You are expected to all stick together – no matter what.

The poem I focused on last week “Immigrants in Our Own Land”, by Jimmy Santiago Baca, gave a description of how men who enter prison, do not exit it as human. War is even worse. It takes good men, and turns them into someone that they themselves do not recognize. Someone who never would have in a million years committed such atrocities if they had not been forced to go to war... forced to see their buddies die in front of them... forced to feel the pain and anguish that words cannot describe, that lead them to do the unthinkable – war crimes, against other human beings, even children, and animals, in the attempt to transfer their pain to someone or something else. Many return home so violent and disturbed that a lifetime of therapy cannot reverse it. 

 

If this passage didn't disturb you, this video will.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated -- Mohandas Gandhi” Source.

I could not find any images on animal brutality with regards to the Vietnam War. Was this just because it wasn't considered bad, or important? Or... was it because the whole war was so brutal, that what happened to some of these animals paled in comparison? Children and animals are some of the innocent victims of war. 

Source's caption: Image of American Army grunt 

committing war crimes in Vietnam.

Source's caption: Image of America's aircraft spraying 

Agent Orange Dioxin on civilian villages in Vietnam.

Source's caption: Photo of innocent Vietnamese children who 

were often the victims of Agent Orange Defoliant Dioxin..

Photos provided by www.DownTheRoad.org the Ongoing Global Bicycle Touring Adventure

Works Cited

“Baby Water buffalo video and caption.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCLsNGIkACc

           You Tube, 2011 Web. 09 July 2011.

Baca, Jimmy Santiago. “Immigrants in Our Own Land” http://www.Poetryfoundation.org/poem/179708http://www.Poetryhttp://www.Poetryfoundation.org/poem/179708http://www.Poetry . Poetry Foundation, 2011. Web. 22 June 2011.

O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1990. Print.

Mohandas Gandhi Quote. “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated -- Mohandas Gandhi” Source: http://www.thenausea.com/elements/special%20topics/crimesagainstanimals/animals%20in%20warfare/animals%20in%20warfare.html

“Fight Animal Abuse And Cruelty” Video. BabyVixen15.

           http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_rKH9vhiDs&feature=related 

          You Tube, 2011. Web. 09 July 2011.

Photos provided by www.DownTheRoad.org the Ongoing Global Bicycle Touring Adventure

Vietnam War Remnants Museum or The human rights violations and war crimes atrocities American and French forces committed in Vietnam. Photo, Pictures of, Images, Picture (January 27, 2005)