Tim and Kathleen on a Field Trip

          I enjoyed the story Field Trip in O'brien's Vietnam war collection.  I found it a fascinating take on how soliders are affected by the war and how they deal with the war many years after its conclusion.  Compared with Norman Bowker, it seems that O'Brien is beginning to cope with the war well.  He decides to make peace with his experience along the Song Tra Bong river by wading out to where Kiowa went under.  The place that had brought him so much pain, horror and bad memories had suddenly become a place of peace.  It became a place where O'Brien could wade into the water and just sit in the warm stinking mud and not be bothered by it.  He recognizes that the war is over.  Not only does he recognize that the war is over, but he recognizes that his internal war, at least with Kiowa's death, is over.

          The second powerful moment in this chapter is when O'Brien wades out of the water and an old  Vietnamese man is looking at him.  Kathleen says, "He looks mad."  Despite Kathleen's evaluation, O'Brien says that he isn't mad and reassures Kathleen that everything is okay.  He finishes the chapter with a powerful line saying, "No, all that's finished."  O'Brien is saying that the war is over between him and that man and symbolical between America and the Vietnamese.  He is laying the war to rest once and for all for himself and his country.  This moment was a powerful one as it explores how long it takes for a solider to lay the war to rest and how it takes returning to a place filled with bad memories to finally bring closure.