Exploration 4: Zach Zambile

In the last chapter, "The Lives of the Dead", a major theme is coping with the death of loved ones.  Throughout the book many of Tim's friends and squad mates end up dying in the war, so exploring the idea of death and Tim's first experience with it makes sense.  In the chapter he describes how his childhood love, Linda, ends up dying of cancer when she was nine years old.  After Linda's death Tim talks about ways he coped.  One of the ways was through dreams.  He says "Lying in bed at night, I made up elaborate stories to bring Linda alive in my sleep.  I invented my own dreams."(O'Brien, 230)  Having had experience losing loved ones myself, a lot of what he said really hit home with me. You can tell what Tim is saying was from real experience.

The research question that I found the most interesting was "What did the US government learn from the Vietnam War that influenced it's decisions in future conflicts?"  The most obvious would be the discontinuation of the draft.  No longer did people have to fight against their wills and leave families who would later protest a loved ones subjection.  Quite the opposite happens now-a-days.  Joining the military has a positive sentiment and due to everyone being there by their own choice military effectiveness and expertise has increased.  The US also learned to avoid a ground war with US troops if at all possible.  We now try to support local militias by supplying intelligence, funding and resources.

US backed Kurdish soldiers fighting in Syria

The exception to this policy would be air strikes and bombardment from afar.  These tactics rarely put American lives in significant danger.  Finally if an ground offensive is inevitable the government now measures the nature of the struggle and make certain it does not make the decision lightly.  Furthermore, if the conflict seems the be not easily won by overwhelming force the US would be reluctant to join for fear of another drawn out gorilla war like Vietnam.

Sources:

Moyer, Ted. “Impact of War Still Misunderstood.” Themorningcall.com, Lower
          Macungie Township, 29 Apr. 2015, www.mcall.com/opinion/letters/mc-sb5-
          moyer-20150429-story.html.

Ball, George W. “The Lessons of Vietnam.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 9
          Sept 2018, 19:50:49, www.nytimes.com/1973/04/01/archives/have-we-learned-
          or-only-failed-the-lessons-of-vietnam-vietnam.html.