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"When you are ordered to march through areas such as Pinkville--GI slang for Song My, parent village of My Lai ... you do some thinking. You hallucinate. You look ahead a few paces and wonder what your legs will resemble if there is more to the earth in that spot than silicates and nitrogen. Will the pain be unbearable? Will you scream or fall silent? Will you be afraid to look at your own body, afraid of the sight of your own red flesh and white bone? You wonder if the medic remembered his morphine."
O'Brien paints an unvarnished portrait of the infantry soldier's life that is at once mundane and terrifying--the endless days of patrolling punctuated by firefights that end as suddenly and inconclusively as they begin; the mind-numbing brutality of burned villages and trampled rice patties; the terror of tunnels, minefields, and the ever-present threat of death. Powerful as these scenes are, perhaps the most memorable chapter in the book concerns his decision to desert just a few weeks before he was sent to Vietnam. "The AWOL bag was ready to go, but I wasn't.... I burned the letters to my family. I read the others and burned them, too. It was over. I simply couldn't bring myself to flee. Family, the home town, friends, history, tradition, fear, confusion, exile: I could not run." Tim O'Brien went into the war opposing it and came out knowing exactly why. If I Die in a Combat Zone is more than just a memoir of a disastrous war; it is also a meditation on heroism and cowardice, on the mutability of truth and morality in a war zone and, most of all, on the simple, human capacity to endure the unendurable. --Alix Wilber
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Book Description Condition: Good. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # 5695002-6
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Good. minor shelf wear to cover Satisfaction 100% guaranteed. Seller Inventory # mon0002475194
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 2.7. Seller Inventory # G0385297742I3N00
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Fair. No Jacket. Readable copy. Pages may have considerable notes/highlighting. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 2.7. Seller Inventory # G0385297742I5N00
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 2.7. Seller Inventory # G0385297742I3N00
Book Description paperback. Condition: Very Good. First Edition. Used - Very Good. Seller Inventory # 11-N-2-0135
Book Description Bon Etat intérieur propre. 13x20x2cm. 1989. Broché. 204 pages. Bon état. Seller Inventory # 100073110
Book Description Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. 3rd Edition. 1989 reprint. SIGNED on half-title p. by author. 203pp. paperback 8vo: Very Good [text is lightly age browned; light wear @ edges of spine strip; else VG] A nice signature under Peace in the author s first book, a classic memoir of service in Vietnam in 1968 by a reluctant draftee. O Brien (b. 1946) later won a National Book Award for his 1979 novel, Going After Cacciato. . Signed by Author(s). Seller Inventory # 19865