O’Brien describes courage as, “ I headed straight along the rainy river, which separates Minnesota from Canada, and which separated one life from another”(O’Brien 45). O’Brien is talking about himself crossing the river from a familiar place to a place unknown. He did not know what was on the other side, but he had the courage to cross the river and find out. He ended up making the right decision and staying back, but also had the courage to stay be strong enough to turn back. 

I would define define courage as being in a situation we are not familiar with. When we do something, even though we might be scared and still do it. That is courage in my opinion. I think courage is getting over our fears, and defeating them. I also think courage is being out into a situation that you are uncomfortable with and being able to have a clear mind about it and push through. We can have courage and fail, but if you fail and try again with the possibility of failure and then succeed, we have not only shown courage but we have conquered our fear. In my quote, O’Brien is debating whether he should flee from the war or stay back and go to war. He had the chance to cross the river and he was scared too but he still went out there. He had the chance to get out of the boat and go to Canada. He did not take the chance and turned back and decided he would fight in the war. In both instances he showed courage. He was scared to fight, but he was also scared to flee. He ended up conquering one of his fears and turned back to go to Vietnam.

I believe that O’Brien was also trying to show that it is alright to be scared. O’Brien states, “and I would have disappeared. I was wired and jittery”(48).  At this point of the story, he was with Elroy. Elroy was trying to help calm him down because he was so hyper and had fear. O’Brien was trying to show that he was scared, and that it is alright to be scared as long as we have the courage to over come it. This relates back to my first point, that courage is when we have fear, but over come it and succeed. What me and O’Brien have in common is that we both believe is that fear will drive a person to overcome what they are uncertain for and bring the best out of them.

 

In conclusion, the main message O’Brien is trying to state is that fear in a persons life is good, and if we have to courage to over come that fear, it is even better. Of course the soldiers are scared to die, they are fighting for their lives but they all had the courage to go to the war and give it all they had to survive and make it back home.