If I Die in a Combat Zone
Hailed as one of the finest books to emerge from the Vietnam War, If I Die in a Combat Zone is a fascinating insight into the lives of the soldiers caught in the conflict.First published in 1973, this intensely personal novel about one foot soldier’s tour of duty in Vietnam established Tim O’Brien’s reputation as the outstanding chronicler of the Vietnam experience for a generation of Americans.From basic training to the front line and back again, he takes the reader on an unforgettable journey – walking the minefields of My Lai, fighting the heat and the snipers in an alien land, crawling into the ghostly tunnels – as he explores the ambiguities of manhood and morality in a war no one believes in.
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TIM O’BRIEN
If I Die in a Combat Zone
HarperPress An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
This Harper Perennial Modern Classics edition published in 2006
Published by Flamingo in 1995
and reprinted five times Previously published in paperback by Paladin 1989 and by Grafton Books 1980 Reprinted twice First published in Great Britain by Calder and Boyars Ltd 1973
Copyright © Tim O’Brien 1969, 1970, 1972, 1973
PS Section © Travis Elborough 2006
PS ™ is a trademark of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
Tim O’Brien asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Portions of this book appeared inPlayboy, the Washington Post, the Minneapolis Tribune and Worthington Daily Globe
Excerpts from ‘Laches’ from The Dialogues of Plato translated by Benjamin Jowett © Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1953. Used by permission of the publisher.
Excerpt from ‘The Waste Land’ from Collected Poems 1909–62 by T.S. Eliot. Used by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc and Faber & Faber.
Lines from ‘Homeward Bound’ by Paul Simon
© 1966 by Paul Simon. Used by permission of Charing Cross Music, Inc.
Excerpt from ‘Hugh Selwyn Mauberly – IV’ from Personae by Ezra Pound. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation and Faber & Faber Ltd.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007204977
Ebook Edition © APRIL 2013 ISBN 9780007381760 Version: 2015-07-02
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
For my family
Names and physical characteristics
of persons depicted in this book have been changed.
Contents
22 Courage Is a Certain Kind of Preserving
P.S. Ideas, Interviews & Features …
Relying on Memory and Imagination: Tim O’Brien talks to Travis Elborough
Box Me Up and Send Me Home: A Timeline
lo maggior don che Dio per sua
larghezza/fesse creando …/ … fu de la volontà la libertate
THE DIVINE COMEDY
Par. V, 19 ff.
‘It’s incredible, it really is, isn’t it? Ever think you’d be humping along some crazy-ass trail like this one, jumping up and down out of the dirt, jumping like a goddamn bullfrog, dodging bullets all day? Don’t know about you, but I sure as hell never thought I’d ever be going on all day like this. Back in Cleveland I’d still be asleep.’ Barney smiled. ‘Jesus, you ever see anything like this?’
‘Yesterday,’ I said.
‘Yesterday? Shit, yesterday wasn’t nothing like this.’
‘Snipers yesterday, snipers today. What’s the difference?’
‘Guess so,’ he said. ‘They’ll put holes in your ass either way, right? But shit, yesterday wasn’t nothing like this.’
‘Snipers yesterday, snipers today,’ I said again.
Barney laughed. ‘You don’t like snipers, do you? Yesterday there were snipers, a few of them, but Jesus, today that’s all there is. Can’t wait ’til tonight. My God, tonight will be lovely. They’ll really give us hell. I’m digging me a foxhole like a basement.’
We lay next to each other until the volley of bullets stopped. We didn’t bother to raise our rifles. We didn’t know which way to shoot, and it was all over anyway.
Barney picked up his helmet and took out a pencil and put a mark on it. ‘See,’ he said, grinning and showing me ten marks, ‘that’s ten times today. Count them – one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, TEN! Ever been shot at ten times in one day?’
‘Yesterday,’ I said. ‘And the day before that and the day before that.’
‘Oh, it’s been worse today.’
‘Did you count yesterday?’
‘No. Didn’t think of it until today. That proves today’s worse.’
‘Well, you should have counted yesterday.’
‘Jesus,’ Barney said. ‘Get off your ass, let’s get going. Company’s moving out.’ Barney put his pencil away and jumped up like a jumping jack, a little kid on a pogo stick, then he pulled me by the hand.
