海角大神

What It Is Like to Go to War

A Vietnam vet urges soldiers to talk more openly about what it means to fight.

Ask most combat veterans what war is like and they鈥檒l tell you 鈥� if they agree to talk about it at all 鈥� that you can鈥檛 know war unless you鈥檝e been there. War movies and battle memoirs will never replicate the firsthand horror and exhilaration of battle. Karl Marlantes, a Marine lieutenant and platoon leader in Vietnam, is equally well aware that combat cannot be bound between two covers. In calling his new book What It Is Like to Go to War, hasn鈥檛 Marlantes promised the impossible?

鈥淲hat It Is Like to Go to War鈥� is really more about What It Is Like to Have Gone to War. True, this book describes the chaos of combat, with beautifully conjured landscapes and riveting battle sequences. Some scenes are nearly identical to those in Marlantes鈥檚 bestselling novel, 鈥�Matterhorn,鈥� and like the novel, 鈥淲hat It Is Like鈥� spares no detail about exhaustion, or excrement, or jungle rot. But this new book is less a memoir than an intellectual analysis in which Marlantes grapples with the complex and disconcerting moral questions involved in fighting and killing.

What he has replicated isn鈥檛 war, but rather the constant mental churning that follows and a quest to recover from man鈥檚 impulses in deadly situations.

It may be an equally impossible task, but Marlantes attempts it with deliberate dissection: Each chapter is titled after behaviors endemic to the war experience 鈥� Killing, Loyalty, Heroism 鈥� and emotions like Guilt or the lack thereof, and Numbness. He musters an army of philosophers, historians, and religious texts with which to attack (and deconstruct) the war experience. He quotes Nietzsche鈥檚 fatalism: 鈥淚 am by nature warlike. To attack is among my instincts.鈥�

鈥淲hat It Is Like to Go to War鈥� goes through all this to amplify what is ultimately a simple plea: The veterans鈥� code of silence must be broken. And yet, in constantly turning from his own thoughts toward those of dead philosophers, Marlantes risks overshadowing the power and emotional impact of his voice. That story after all 鈥� of a single man who fought in Vietnam and spent decades learning how to heal himself 鈥� is the book鈥檚 vital center.

As Marlantes鈥檚 own experience illustrates, silence may provide strength to the veteran and save him from society鈥檚 ridicule and scorn, but it also leads a returning soldier to release bottled-up emotions through aggression, or meaningless sex, or substance abuse, as Marlantes himself once did. The only way to rewrite this code of silence, Marlantes says, is to teach soldiers how to express their feelings and process their experiences in wartime, not afterward. 鈥淒uring combat tours time must be carved out to reflect,鈥� he writes. He wishes that after each military action, his commanding officer could have 鈥渄rawn us all together, just us. In ten or fifteen minutes of solemn time we could have asked forgiveness and said good-bye to our lost friends....鈥�

In Vietnam, Marlantes made his soldiers bury the bodies of their victims and assumed the men would complete this as a 鈥渕echanical task.鈥� After all, they were already claiming body parts as trophies 鈥� cutting off the ears of dead Vietnamese and affixing them to their hats and helmets. But instead, when faced with the solemn, humanizing ritual, the soldiers cried. 鈥淲hy,鈥� he asks, 鈥渄on鈥檛 we bury our enemies with ceremony?鈥�

Many people might see such practices as unmanly or silly, he says, but he鈥檚 determined to change that 鈥� and with it, to change what it鈥檚 like to go to war. 鈥淸I]f by reading this book before entering combat a young warrior can be helped to better handle the many psychological, moral, and spiritual stresses of combat,鈥� he writes in the opening chapter, 鈥渢hen this book will have been worth writing.鈥�

But his book isn鈥檛 just for future soldiers. It鈥檚 for all of us, to help us understand what we鈥檙e asking our soldiers to do. We know that war is horrific, but Marlantes also wants us to know that it can be 鈥減leasurable and satisfying鈥� 鈥� and that the dangers of denying this duality are great. It took Marlantes decades to confront the moral ambiguities of his combat experience and even longer to speak about them. He鈥檚 talking now, though, even as he remains wounded 鈥� and feels that he has wounded others. The mere act of walking on grass, he writes, makes him feel like he鈥檚 鈥渨alking on someone鈥檚 skin.鈥� Those of us who have never been to war cannot feel this pain, nor would we want to. But we can see it 鈥� and respect it.

Jennifer Miller鈥檚 debut novel, 鈥淭he Year of the Gadfly,鈥� will be published in May 2012.

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