Summary vs. Analysis: The Ghost Soldiers
Tim O’Brien’s story The Ghost Soldiers delves into the shooting and ultimate revenge of the character Tim O’Brien in Vietnam. After being shot with the Alpha Company along the Song Tra Bong and receiving sub-par treatment and almost dying of shock due to the new medic Bobby Jorgenson, he is shipped back and stationed at Headquarters Company-S-4. With time to contemplate and stew on what happened, the physical pain, continuing side effects from infection and losing the camaraderie with his troop, he focuses his anger and need for revenge on Bobby Jorgenson.
The story details the plot of revenge acted out by the character Azar a somewhat over the top and disturbed solider and O’Brien at the Headquarters Company while Bobby Jorgenson was their. It shows the process of anger to forgiveness through psychological torment in both Jorgenson and O’Brien.
In the story O’Brien makes the following statement:
“Psychology-that was one thing I knew. You don’t try to scare people in broad daylight. You wait. Because the darkness squeezes you inside yourself, you get cut off from the outside world, the imagination takes over.” (195)
I think psychology played a large role, good or bad for soldiers in Vietnam, but more so for O’Brien. Throughout all his stories he is constantly over analyzing and looking for reason when in reality war is war, what will come of trying to rationalize it? The over thinking of the shooting somewhat altered his conscious state to be unrealistic and boarder line psychotic in behavior, like when he describes the imagination taking over him. The inability to put what happened to him in perspective and just accept that Jorgenson made a mistake he was a rookie and just let it go was not an option to O’Brien anymore and with his psychological attack on Jorgenson he realized just how much he had strayed from reality. “…but the presence of death and danger has a way of bringing you fully awake.” (183)
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