I have found the theme of veterans integrating back into the American society one of the broadest reaching theme in all the war literature we have read so far. This seems to be one of the biggest challenges these men face, even bigger than facing the enemy. In this novel, In Country, Bobbie Ann Mason portrays Emmett as a character who never quite made it all the way back into society. He lived with his sister, couldn’t hold a job, and now wears skirts and only hangs out with other veterans. But wait, wearing skirts is a new facet to this integration disability. Emmett walks into the room, wearing a “long, thin Indian-print skirt with elephants and peacocks on it” (26). Sam explains to everyone that he is mocking Klinger’s behavior on M*A*S*H (27). I decided to investigate this odd behavior a little more closely. Klinger is a “wounded” soldier who fakes being of unstable mind in order to be granted a Section 8 discharge by the military. He dresses in women’s clothes and does unusual behaviors in order to make everyone believe that he is crazy, just so he can go back home to America. A Section 8 discharge was considered an undesirable discharge because it translated into the fact that the army found the soldier to be mentally unfit for active duty based on evidence of mental instability. This means, when these soldiers came back to the states, everywhere they tried to get a job and begin earning a living knew they had been discharged from the army because they were “crazy,” and if you aren’t good enough for battle, you probably aren’t good enough for anything else either. It’s amazing the drastic measures these soldiers would endure just to leave the Vietnam War.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Week 10 - Closed Topic
I have found the theme of veterans integrating back into the American society one of the broadest reaching theme in all the war literature we have read so far. This seems to be one of the biggest challenges these men face, even bigger than facing the enemy. In this novel, In Country, Bobbie Ann Mason portrays Emmett as a character who never quite made it all the way back into society. He lived with his sister, couldn’t hold a job, and now wears skirts and only hangs out with other veterans. But wait, wearing skirts is a new facet to this integration disability. Emmett walks into the room, wearing a “long, thin Indian-print skirt with elephants and peacocks on it” (26). Sam explains to everyone that he is mocking Klinger’s behavior on M*A*S*H (27). I decided to investigate this odd behavior a little more closely. Klinger is a “wounded” soldier who fakes being of unstable mind in order to be granted a Section 8 discharge by the military. He dresses in women’s clothes and does unusual behaviors in order to make everyone believe that he is crazy, just so he can go back home to America. A Section 8 discharge was considered an undesirable discharge because it translated into the fact that the army found the soldier to be mentally unfit for active duty based on evidence of mental instability. This means, when these soldiers came back to the states, everywhere they tried to get a job and begin earning a living knew they had been discharged from the army because they were “crazy,” and if you aren’t good enough for battle, you probably aren’t good enough for anything else either. It’s amazing the drastic measures these soldiers would endure just to leave the Vietnam War.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
This is something I had never really thought about. I wonder if soldiers who were discharged in this manner not by choice felt insignificant when they arrived home. I can't imagine being somewhere and doing a job and being "let go" because I was mentally unstable. I'm pretty sure I would for the rest of my life feel sub par and afraid of myself. I can't imagine walking around life that way.
Post a Comment