War: Another name for death

This year’s Iola Reads selection by Tim O’Brien, “The Things They Carried,” is so profound and compelling about the realities of war it’s difficult to lay aside.
In his words:
“It’s time to be blunt. I’m 43 years old, true, and I’m a writer now, and a long time ago I walked through Quan Ngai Province as a foot soldier.
“Almost everything else in invented.
“But it’s not a game. It’s a form. Right here, now, as I invent myself, I’m thinking of all I want to tell you about why this book is written as it is. For instance, I want to tell you this: 20 years ago I watched a man die on a trail near the village of My Khe. I did not kill him. But I was present, you see, and my presence was guilt enough. … I blamed myself. And rightly so, because I was present.”
The book is a series of short stories concocted and connected from O’Brien’s memories. They are based on excruciatingly graphic details.
At times poignancy evolves from raw humor that the soldiers use to maintain their sanity. Tramping through the boonies in South Vietnam they never were far from death — theirs or the enemies.
The young men have differences and individual sensibilities, but draw together into a cohesive group, using that cohesiveness to physically and mentally maintain an even keel one day to the next — and through dark nights when the “ghosts of Nam” come out. That is what O’Brien so deftly translates to the reader, in powerful and fluid prose. The writing may be fiction, but it is historically accurate.
O’Brien’s writing gives keen insight to what war really is like, removing the varnish that Hollywood and video games apply. War is about death and there is nothing glorious about it, although the anxiety and fear generate a level of excitement seldom found in any other human endeavor.
While some language is a little coarse, the book is an excellent one for young folks. They learn in no uncertain terms that death is real and not a splash of sound and light in a video game.

“THE THINGS They Carried” was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and won several writing awards for O’Brien. The book is available for the taking, with return expected, at Iola Pharmacy and Iola Public Library.
An event within the Iola Reads sequence is Tuesday evening at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center auditorium. “Letters from Home” will start at 7 o’clock and will give first-person insight to the war in Afghanistan.