War is an arena of constant and immediate death permeated with the desperation and fear of humans. Soldiers are tasked with living and surviving in such conditions for long periods of time. Thus, making one wonder how they are able to withstand such psychological stress for so long. In reading war novels, one gains insight into the introspective thoughts of a soldier on war, and a pattern emerges in which soldiers rely on each other for emotional support and stability. Comradeship serves as an oasis for soldiers, in which they can create a social imaginary within their circles that catalyzes the normalization of war, and is utilized as an emotional support. However, when they actually return home this oasis is no longer needed. Thus, resulting in the soldier realizing two thing: how some relationships are only possible in war and, through cognitive dissonance, how much war has altered their character.
In the prologue of The Road Back we are directly planted into a war, and the main character, Ernst, is surrounded by his comrades. One can be forgiven if in the first couple of pages one fails to realize that these men are actually at war. The conversations that Ernst and his comrades have do not directly focus on war, but better serve to distract the soldiers from what is going on around them. They reveal to the reader a mentality that these soldiers share with each other. A mentality that leads to the normalization of war. This is a classic method of enduring and coping with the savagery of warfare, but this exercise is not done alone. The process of adapting to war is one that is made possible through the vehicle of comradeship, and by the tool of conversation. For example, Wessling, Kosole, and Willy talk about wild Geese, and how they want to eat them, and be them so they can fly away from the war (Remarque 7). Jupp and Kosole have a conversation about shells not about that fact that they are weapons for killing, but they focus on the sound they make as they’re fired (Remarque 3). In these scenes, the soldiers are discussing entities of war in a nonchalant manner, that gives the idea that these war experiences are workaday. This behaviour is one done in camaraderie, and it fuels the mental oasis that the soldiers make within their communities. It allows them to adapt to war and all of its gruelling aspects by speaking casually about it within their groups, which creates a mentality that war is an ordinary ordeal, and leads to the soldiers being able to cope with the experience of warfare.
Camaraderie also serves as an emotional support for the soldier, an entity they rely on in times of peril. The story of the baby buffalo in The Things They Carried exemplifies the importance friendship possess, and how soldiers support each other in hard times. While playing catch with Rat Kiley, Curt Lemon stepped on a booby trap and died (O’Brien 74). This event obviously affected Rat Kiley, who was friends with Curt Lemon, and his feelings manifested themselves in killing a baby buffalo. Once the baby buffalo was captured Rat kiley proceeded to, “[shoot] it in the hindquarters and in the little hump at its back. He shot it twice in the flanks. It wasn’t to kill; it was to hurt” (O’Brien 75). This event is very telling of the internal conflict Rat was feeling at the time, but what is even more important to notice is the reaction of the rest of the soldiers. “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” (O’Brien 75). The group of soldiers understand the severity of losing such a friendship, especially at war, and know that the pain the baby buffalo was feeling could not match the internal suffering of Rat Kiley.
In Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk the main character, Billy, also relies on his comrades for support to handle the overwhelming gratitude of the people. There are two instances in which Billy expresses a disconnection when dealing with citizens. The first occurs in the beginning of the novel, where the detachment Billy has towards the citizen, and their ideas of war, is best observed in the words he uses to describe them. For example, “overcaffeinated tag teams of citizens trampolined right down the middle of his hangover” (Fountain 1). Furthermore, “there’s something harsh in his fellow Americans, avid, ecstatic, a burning that comes of the deepest need” (Fountain 38). To Billy the citizens are not only people, but a boisterous aggressive energy that desires something from him. He doesn’t understand this need nor does he know how to properly interact with these people. Throughout the book Billy describes the awkwardness he feels as he is being acknowledged by people, “Billy felt his stride going wonky, his arms starting to fail, but a quick glance at Dime settled him down... Fake it till you make it, he reminds himself” (Fountain 52). This interaction is key because in the middle of the internal mayhem Billy is experience the thing that helps him stabilize is his comrade, Dime. This is because Dime has been with Billy for the most difficult moments of war. They have a bond that was forged in war and that the citizens do not understand nor will they ever. This is what helps Billy endure the overwhelming attention he receives from the people, and is something Ernst had with some of his comrades.
After war, a soldier realizes that certain connections are only made possible in war. The uniformity of war suppresses the ideas and premises that make up the social imaginary, thus allowing for unbiased friendship. Back home, however, the soldiers are once again subjugated to the social imaginary, and slowly the relationships forged in combat are dissolved. Ernst in The Road Back discovers this phenomenon when his war buddies unite for the first time after war. He realizes that the socio-economic standings of his comrades divide their once united attack force, but in the front lines they played no role,“Perhaps it is because of the civilian clothes sprinkled about everywhere among the military togs, or maybe that profession and family and social standing, like so many wedges have split us asunder; but certainly it is, the old feeling of comradeship has gone” (Remarque 180). The setting of war is where Ernst best understood the human condition, but outside of armed combat he struggles to comprehend his friends like he use to back at war.
The soldier, after war, is left with new ideologies that were overseeable in the oasis of comradeship. This is evident in the various texts we have read, the soldier has a different set of ideologies than that of the citizen. For example, take the conversation Ernst has with his sister about her engagement with a captain, “If a captain stops a shrapnel bullet in the nut he’s a gonner, same as any other sort of man” (Remarque 70). The crude type of language Ernst uses in this scene would be normal in a conversation with his comrades, but in his home with his sister this type of language is no longer acceptable. Furthermore, this type of disconnection between the world build by a soldier and his comrades is evident in the interpretation of the baby buffalo story in Tim O’Brien’s work. While talking about his story with a woman O’Brien says, “she wasn’t listening. It wasn’t a war story. It was a love story” (81). This text reveals that the soldier sees this story very differently from the average person. This is because the world of a soldier is interconnected, and the violent act that Rat Kiley did was an expression of love for his fallen comrade. The soldier is best able to recognize the changes within himself by interacting with people that have not undergone the same conditions as them. By talking with people not associate with the war the soldier can see the changes in his ideology that were catalyzed by war.
The cognitive dissonance that is created between the soldier and the citizen is illustrated further in Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. During the Bravo’s meal a man approaches them and starts once again the trite conversation the soldiers know too well of war and all of its extremities (Fountain 65). At one point the man says, “I can imagine how hard it is on you young men. To be exposed to that level of violence” (Fountain 65). Which is responded by Dime with, “That’s not it at all! We like violence, we like going lethal! I mean, isn’t that what you’re paying us for?” (Fountain 65). This interaction demonstrates the difference in ideologies that the soldier and the citizen subscribe to. The citizen thinks the soldier shares the same moral compass as he does, and assumes that killing, to the soldier, is an unpleasant and grueling obligation. However, the soldiers reveal that this is completely false, and that the opposite is the actual truth. The soldiers are no longer members of the social imaginary that the citizen references. The soldier belongs to an imaginary that is only shared by other soldiers, an imaginary that does not follow the conventional premises of society.
The maelstrom of despair, blood, and death that is war, is an entity that affects the mind of a soldier long after the fighting has ended. The relationships forged in war serve as an emotional comfort, and tool for adapting to the cruelties of war for the soldier. They bring soldiers together and make them heavily rely on each other for support. Thus, making comradeship extremely valuable for the soldier, and this is shown by the reaction of Rat Kiley at losing his best friend. Furthermore, after war the refuge the soldier creates to survive mentally in active warfare is no longer necessary. In time, the soldier realizes that they no longer are in sync with the ideas that people in society hold as conventional. They see the world in a different light, and most importantly they realize that people in society will never see the world as they do. This is when the soldier realizes that war has changed him as a person, and that the only people that can truly understand him is other soldiers. Furthermore, he realizes that some of the relationships held in combat are not possible in normal society, for some soldiers have gone back into the social imaginary. Once the fighting ends the soldier is left with a profound connection he feels with his comrade and a deep disconnection with the people back in society.
Work Cited:
- Remarque, Erich. The Road Back. New York: Random House, 2013. Print.
- O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Mariner, 2009. Print.
- Fountain, Ben. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. New York: HarperCollins, 2012. Print.
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