In John H. Timmerman’s essay, “Tim O’Brien and the Art of the True War Story: Night March and Speaking of Courage,” he states that: “The Vietnam war story is not simply about the rise and fall of nations (South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Laos, China, Thailand, the United States, and Soviet Union).  Rather, it is about the rise and fall of the dreams of individual soldiers—their hopes riddled by disillusionment, their fantasies broken by shrapnel-edged realities” (100).  I have to say that I agree with Timmerman that the Vietnam War was more than just about the war itself.  What the individual soldiers had to go through during the Vietnam War adds to the event.  You can learn all the facts about a certain historical event, but it is not until you hear a story from someone that was actually there that you can truly understand what it was like.

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Timmerman believes that O’Brien’s chapter, “Speaking of Courage,” “poses a fundamental distinction between the fact of what “actually” happened and the reality experience by the individual” (100).  I agree with Timmerman because it is in this chapter that readers can truly see the burden of having to be courageous can have on an individual.  In the chapter, “Speaking of Courage,” in The Things They Carried¸ O’Brien provides readers with a story that shows us the struggle soldiers may have faced postwar.  In “Speaking of Courage,” readers get to experience the postwar story of the character Norman Bowker.  In this chapter readers see that just like Tim O’Brien, Norman struggles with deciding if his actions during the war were courageous or cowardly.  Was he a hero for his actions or a coward?

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For the most part it seems that Norman was quite a courageous soldier while he was serving in Vietnam.  However, it was one particular event, the death of his combat member Kiowa that made him deliberate his actions while in Vietnam.  Norman even states that he felt he was not brave at this particular moment: “well, this one time, this one night out by the river…I wasn’t very brave” (O’Brien 136).  It seems that Norman is struggling with grief and confusion because he knows that he could have been braver and perhaps be able to save his friend’s life.  In a way Norman was courageous because he reacted when he saw Kiowa slipping away in the muck instead of just standing by thinking someone else who save Kiowa.

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As soon as Norman saw Kiowa sinking into the muck he grabbed him by the boot and tried his best to pull him out.  But, as soon as he saw there was no hope and Kiowa was lost, Norman let go of him in order to save himself from sinking deeper into the muck.  Norman thinks he was as brave as he could have been, but even that much bravery was not enough to save Kiowa from slipping away into the muck.

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It seems that Norman is struggling with this particular moment because he knows in his heart that he did not freak and he could have saved Kiowa if things had just went his way.  “I didn’t flip out, he would’ve said.  I was cool.  If things had gone right, if it hadn’t been for that smell, I could’ve won the Silver Star” (O’Brien 143).  Norman blames the smell of the muck for getting in the way of his bravery.  If it was not for the smell Norman feels he could have saved Kiowa and earned the Sliver Star.  I find it strange that Norman blames the smell for not being able save his friend.  I mean, if Norman truly was courageous he would have been able to get pass the smell and save Kiowa.  To mean someone who is courageous would do whatever they could in order to succeed.  A courageous solider would have been able to see pass the horrible smell and saved Kiowa.  Perhaps this is why Norman struggles with his bravery at this moment because he too knows that a courageous solider would have not let the horrible smell get in the way of saving a fellow combat. I think Timmerman sums this idea up nicely when he says, “what people would have heard, if only they had listened, was Norman Bowker’s story of how he had courage, of how he almost saved his friends Kiowa, expect for the terrible stink of the shitfield” (108).  Yes, Norman was courageous for acting and trying to save Kiowa, but all anyone is going to listen to is how he was not able to because of the smell.  Norman is going to be viewed as a coward because he let a smell get in the way.  So in the end was Norman a hero or a coward?  I feel it could go either way some may say he was a coward while others may see him as a hero.  I think he was both.  Norman was a hero for trying to save Kiowa but he was also a coward because he let the smell get in the way of his heroic actions.  Because I feel if he was truly courageous he would have been able to get pass the horrible smell and saved Kiowa.

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