Beginning of Essay
O'Brien's "If I Die in a Combat Zone", Hasford's "The Short-Timers", Moore's "The Green Berets", and O'Brien's "Going After Cacciato": Parallels The introductory readings, Obrien's If I die in a Combat Zone, Hasford's The Short-Timers, Moore's The Green Berets, an ....

Middle of Essay
.... fear. Afraid of not upholding his pride, afraid of dying in a, "[war that] was wrongly conceived and poorly justified," (Combat, 29), and crippled by, "Doubts...hedged all this: I had neither the expertise nor the wisdom to synthesize answers..." (Combat, 29), the character simply is paralyzed by fear, and because of this, gets on the draftee bus without really having made a decision. It was an intellectual and physical stand-off, and I did not have the energy to see it to an end. I did not want to be a soldier, not even a observer to war. But neither did I want to upset a peculiar balance between the order I knew, the people I knew, and my ow ....