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
O’Brien flies to Vietnam and lands in Chu Lai, arriving at a place called the Combat Center that serves as the central headquarters for American battalions. He thinks that arriving in Vietnam feels like arriving at basic training—everything feels new, intimidating, and evil. O’Brien spends a week at the Combat Center, already counting down the days until his time in Vietnam is over. New arrivals train with hand grenades and minesweepers. O’Brien wonders what it feels like to die and what his internal organs look like. After the week, a truck takes O’Brien and other new arrivals to LZ (Landing Zone) Gator, their new home.
O’Brien’s sense that everything in Vietnam feels evil does not suggest that the country itself is evil, but that his presence as a new combatant feels evil. His contemplation of what dying feels like indicates that beneath his ethical objections to the war, he is also understandably afraid to die, especially for a cause that he doesn’t believe in.
Themes
A sergeant explains that the new arrivals will all be assigned to rifle companies and sent out to the jungle to fight. An officer tells the men they can “re-up”: commit to three extra years of military service in exchange for reassignment away from combat, working as mechanics or clerks. No one takes him up on the offer. O’Brien thinks LZ Gator feels safe enough. He receives an assignment to Alpha Company, and a mail clerk takes him to meet the first sergeant, who is drinking beer and sitting in his underwear in front of a fan. The sergeant tells O’Brien that Alpha Company is coming in from the field soon, so O’Brien can just wait and meet them at LZ Gator.
The new arrivals’ refusal to “re-up” and commit to three more years in exchange for safety suggests that they are resigned to their fates as infantrymen. O’Brien finds the first sergeant sitting in his underwear and drinking beer, which appears decidedly frivolous and undisciplined, suggesting that the reality of army life in Vietnam is much different than the image of decorum that the drill sergeants at basic training conveys.
Themes
O’Brien receives his combat gear and spends two days waiting for Alpha Company to arrive. When they do, most of them ignore O’Brien and set about immediately getting drunk and high. In the middle of the night, O’Brien hears explosions and a first sergeant shouts that they’re being attacked. O’Brien grabs his helmet and runs outside, but no one else does. Eventually, a few Alpha Company soldiers amble out in their underwear, sit on sandbags and laugh as mortars hit the rice paddies below the hill. O’Brien hides behind a beer shed. Some men shoot a machine gun out toward where the mortars are firing from. The Viet Cong see the flash of machine gun fire in the base and start aiming toward it. A mortar round lands 20 feet from O’Brien’s beer shed and sprays it with shrapnel.
Again, Alpha Company’s general lack of discipline subverts O’Brien’s expectations and suggests that life as an infantryman is disorganized and haphazard. The returning soldiers’ lack of reaction to the mortar attacks suggests that after a certain amount of time in combat, being attacked becomes so familiar as to feel rote. Physical danger becomes commonplace, even mundane. The odd demeanors and disorderly attitudes of the other soldiers foreshadows the lifestyle and behavior that O’Brien himself will adapt himself to.
Themes
A lieutenant finally orders the men down to the perimeter to fight, and most of them oblige. They spray machine gun fire toward the mortars and shoot off flares. A few men just mess around. By morning, they find two dead Americans, though they don’t belong to Alpha Company, and eight dead Viet Cong. Some men load corpses into the truck. Two soldiers named the Kid and Wolf tell O’Brien that this little fight was nothing. They joke around while they refill sand bags and call O’Brien “F.N.G.,” though he doesn’t know what this means. O’Brien asks the Kid how many casualties Alpha Company has taken and if he’s ever been wounded. The Kid good-naturedly blows O’Brien off and tells him not to worry.
Again, Alpha Company’s general disregard for the fighting or the dead soldiers suggests that danger and death become commonplace, even mundane, during wartime. The Kid’s refusal to tell O’Brien any specifics about life in combat implies that the soldiers try not to think about their daily life or what they are doing too much. This further suggests that soldiers cope with combat and grim environments by repressing or ignoring their actual feelings, minimizing everything that happens to them.
Themes
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