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
Captain Johansen watches his men drink beer, toasting the end of another day. They’ve had a week without the enemy, without any injuries, and they are happy. In one week, Johansen will be reassigned to a good desk-job in the rear echelon. He tells O’Brien, sitting next to him, that he’d “rather be brave than almost anything” and states that he wishes he’d acted “more bravely” at My Lai a year ago. O’Brien thinks it strange that Captain Johansen wants to be braver—he once saw Johansen single-handedly charge across a rice paddy and kill an enemy soldier at close distance. A kid named Arizona tried the same thing on the same day and was shot dead, but people always remember those who “charge” as brave, regardless of the outcome.
Captain Johansen’s wish that he had been braver at My Lai refers to the period before O’Brien arrived, during which Alpha Company took heavy losses and direct their hatred toward civilians as well as the Viet Cong. Although O’Brien idolizes Johansen as a good and courageous man, Johansen has been present for all of the atrocities against civilians thus far described. This suggests that in the Vietnam War, amid the pain and fear and stress, even the best men find themselves committing reprehensible actions. Nobody makes it through the war with their conscience clean.
Themes
O’Brien fought a bully once—“the enemy”—in grade school, but that doesn’t seem brave to him. O’Brien wasn’t with Alpha Company during the My Lai Massacre, but he is now. He fetches a beer for Captain Johansen, and Johansen tells O’Brien that he doesn’t need to carry the radio anymore if he doesn’t want to—marching close to an officer puts O’Brien at risk. O’Brien responds that he’ll carry on as he always has, and Johansen leaves.
O’Brien’s recollection that he thought of the schoolyard bully as “the enemy” suggests that people naturally look at the world through a lens of allies and enemies, even though the enemy may simply be someone they disagree with. Meanwhile, O’Brien’s decision to keep carrying the radio, even though it is a dangerous role, suggests that he possesses some measure of bravery.
Themes
O’Brien reflects that real courage is “wise courage,” just as Plato argued that courage is “endurance of the soul,” but only when tempered with wisdom. O’Brien thinks about how he endured basic training and months of war, and wonders if that endurance was wise or foolhardy. The Vietnam War does not feel morally imperative like World War II—it feels needless. O’Brien wonders if his endurance, carrying him into a foolish war, was “merely a well-disguised cowardice.”
O’Brien’s reflection that he endured basic training—which brought him into the war—but did so against his own wisdom suggests that his presence in the war is not courageous as Plato defined it. O’Brien’s sense that that endurance may have been cowardice implies that the brave thing to do, in his mind, would have been to refuse to participate in the war.
Themes
O’Brien thinks back on a day when American soldiers shoot at some boys herding cows, since the animals are in a “free-fire zone” and are thus “legal targets.” O’Brien doesn’t shoot but neither does he try to stop the others from shooting. Near My Lais, many men die from their own endurance, which presses them to walk until they step on a mine. O’Brien thinks again about Plato, who argued for endurance tempered by wisdom. If someone is wise, then he knows he is doing the right thing. Most men are not courageous: either they know what is right but can’t do it, or they endure their way through something they only think is right. “Courage is more than the charge,” but O’Brien thinks that most soldiers don’t actually think about courage, especially not in Alpha Company.
American soldiers shoot at civilians because they are “legal targets” even though they obviously pose no threat, again suggesting that in the midst of war the Americans struggle to maintain a clear idea of who their enemy actually is. O’Brien’s belief that enduring hardship for a wrong cause is not brave contradicts many characters’ belief that courage is about having “guts” and acting under pressure. By O’Brien’s reckoning, the soldiers who endure the war even though it is wrong are not courageous at all, but rather misguided.
Themes
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When Alpha Company marches through Pinkville, they don’t talk about death or even name it directly since it feels like bad luck. Thus, there is no courage among them. O’Brien once met a doctor who ran through rifle fire to help a dying soldier. The doctor described it not as bravery, just his reaction to someone crying for help. All of O’Brien’s pre-war heroes were fictional men on TV or in books: they all possessed wisdom, all consciously thought about being brave and courageous. But in Vietnam, Captain Johansen seems to be the only man who ever considers what courage truly is. No one else. Johansen is the only real-life hero that O’Brien can think of.
Alpha Company’s decision to cope with death by minimizing it, ignoring it, or making light of it disqualifies them from being courageous, since they never confront the reality of their actions or environment. They endure, but without any wisdom. O’Brien considers Johansen a hero, even though Johansen committed many of the same acts of violence as the rest of Alpha Company. However, Johansen seems the only one to honestly reflect on what he has done, suggesting that his honesty and self-criticism distinguish him as truly courageous.
Themes
O’Brien looks at Captain Johansen as he sleeps in his poncho. The captain is tall and blond, possesses medals of commendation, and seems the only true hero in Vietnam. All of Alpha Company’s subsequent commanders don’t measure up. Losing Johansen hurts Alpha Company, like when the Trojan army loses Hector. Johansen helps to minimize the futility of their war, to keep the worst of it away from his men. Sadly, O’Brien knows that he is not, nor will he ever be, such a hero. Most men in Alpha Company are not heroes but neither are they cowards—regardless of whether they commit a cowardly act now and then. The best they can do is try to be braver the next time than they were the last: “that by itself is a kind of courage,” O’Brien reflects.
O’Brien’s appreciation of Johansen’s efforts to minimize the nihilism of the Vietnam War suggests that this makes Johansen a courageous hero—he endures hardship not only to protect himself, but to do what is right for his men. Although O’Brien doesn’t consider himself or any of his fellow soldiers to be heroes, he recognizes that most of them try to become a bit braver and wiser as they go.
Themes
