Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in If I Die in a Combat Zone, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Evils of the Vietnam War
Courage
Duty vs. Conscience
The Enemy
Racism at War
Summary
Analysis
While Alpha Company rests at a village, one of the American soldiers finds a North Vietnamese Rifle hidden beneath a bush. Captain Johansen orders his men to search the village, and they tear it apart until sundown as the frightened villagers watch on. The soldiers don’t find anything but they decide to take three old men in the village and tie them to trees in the middle of their encampment—the enemy won’t attack the Americans if their own fathers are held hostage among them.
The soldiers use the old men as human shields, which has long been internationally regarded as a war crime. Alpha Company’s conduct gets progressively worse, suggesting that the more tired and desperate soldiers become, the more likely they are to do despicable things. Tragically, though the Americans are fighting the Viet Cong, it is the Vietnamese civilians who suffer most.
Themes
O’Brien sits awake at night, manning the radio. Bates sits with him and says that keeping hostages like this is “appalling.” O’Brien thinks they look “like the men at Golgotha.” He gives one of them a drink from his canteen. In the morning, an officer beats and interrogates the old men. The old men remain silent, however, so the Americans release them and move on.
“The men at Golgotha” is a reference to the prisoners who were crucified alongside Jesus Christ, which suggests that these old men are casualties amid a greater injustice. Bates and O’Brien both think the situation is wrong but they do not set the old men free, suggesting that their fear and hesitance to go against their comrades stops them from following their consciences.
Themes
