Home > Work > Fields of Fire
21 " Well, so be it. But if they’re willing to accept the benefits of this society—like a Harvard education—they should also accept the burdens.” His father looked up at him. “I’m not happy you went into the Marines, Will. But I accepted it. I wouldn’t have been very happy if you’d refused the draft and gone to jail, but I could have accepted that. But I’d have buried my face in mortal shame if you’d done what Mark did. He ignored the law. He turned his back on the whole structure that binds our society.” Goodrich held his buzzing head in both hands. The world had just succeeded in finding the final little nudge that sent it topsy-turvy. “He didn’t do anything really wrong, Dad. I think I have the standing to say that.” “You were arguing with him when I came in—” “I don’t want him to tell me about Vietnam. But he isn’t wrong.” “You "
― James Webb , Fields of Fire
22 " Well, so be it. But if they’re willing to accept the benefits of this society—like a Harvard education—they should also accept the burdens.” His father looked up at him. “I’m not happy you went into the Marines, Will. But I accepted it. I wouldn’t have been very happy if you’d refused the draft and gone to jail, but I could have accepted that. But I’d have buried my face in mortal shame if you’d done what Mark did. He ignored the law. He turned his back on the whole structure that binds our society.” Goodrich held his buzzing head in both hands. The world had just succeeded in finding the final little nudge that sent it topsy-turvy. “He didn’t do anything really wrong, Dad. I think I have the standing to say that.” “You were arguing with him when I came in—” “I don’t want him to tell me about Vietnam. But he isn’t wrong.” “You know what we’ve lost, William? We’ve lost a sense of responsibility, at least on the individual level. We have too many people like Mark who believe that the government owes them total, undisciplined freedom. If everyone thought that way, there would be no society. We’re so big, so strong now, that people seem to have forgotten that a part of our strength comes from each person surrendering a portion of his individual urges to the common good. And "
23 " the common good is defined by who wins at the polls, and the policies they make. Like it or lump it. "
24 " What about the duty to protest? What Mark was doing is as old as Thoreau. Civil disobedience is as American as—killing Indians!” His father smiled, just the smallest curving of his mouth. “That answers itself, Son. "
25 " Thoreau went to jail, not to Canada. That’s civil disobedience. The other is self-interest, cloaked with morality. "
26 " He sensed that it was all here, everything, and there was none of it there. All of life's compelling throbs, condensed and honed each time a bullet flew: the pain, the brother-love, the sacrifice. Nobility discovered by those who'd never even contemplated sacrifice, never felt an emotion worth their own blood on someone else's altar. "
27 " I just look at you and say, ‘that used to be me. But it isn't anymore. "
28 " I can tell from the crack of a rifle shot the type of weapon fired and what direction the bullet is traveling. I can listen to a mortar pop and know its size, how far away it is. I know instinctively when I should prep a tree line with artillery before I move into it. I know which draws and fields should be crossed on line, which should be assaulted, and which are safe to cross in column. I know where to place my men when we stop and form a perimeter. I can shoot a rifle and throw a grenade and direct air and artillery onto any target, under any circumstances. I can dress any type of wound, I have dressed all types of wounds, watered protruding intestines with my canteen to keep them from cracking under sun bake, patched sucking chests with plastic, tied off stumps with field expedient tourniquets. I can call in medevac helicopters, talk them, cajole them, dare them into any zone. I do these things, experience these things, repeatedly, daily. Their terrors and miseries are so compelling, and yet so regular, that I have ascended to a high emotion that is nonetheless a crusted numbness. I am an automaton, bent on survival, agent and prisoner of my misery. How terribly exciting. And how, to what purpose, will these skills serve me when this madness ends? What lies on the other side of all this? It frightens me. I haven't thought about it. I haven't prepared for it. I am so good, so ready for these things that were my birthright. I do not enjoy them. I know they have warped me. But it will be so hard to deal with a life empty of them. "
29 " Well, what kind of hello is that? Besides. You wouldn't want me as a supply officer, Bagger. I'd fuck it up so bad you'd starve. "
30 " I can tell from the crack of a rifle shot the type of weapon fired and what direction the bullet is traveling. I can listen to a mortar pop and know its size, how far away it is. I know instinctively when I should prep a treeline with artillery before I move into it. I know which draws and fields should be crossed on line, which should be assaulted, and which are safe to cross in column. I know where to place my men when we stop and form a perimeter. I can shoot a rifle and throw a grenade and direct air and artillery onto any target, under any circumstances. I can dress any type of wound, I have dressed all types of wounds, watered protruding intestines with my canteen to keep them from cracking under sunbake, patched sucking chests with plastic, tied off stumps with field-expedient tourniquets. I can call in medevac helicopters, talk them, cajole them, dare them into any zone. I do these things, experience these things, repeatedly, daily. Their terrors and miseries are so compelling, and yet so regular, that I have ascended to a high emotion that is nonetheless a crusted numbness. I am an automaton, bent on survival, agent and prisoner of my misery. How terribly exciting. And how, to what purpose, will these skills serve me when this madness ends? What lies on the other side of all this? It frightens me. I haven’t thought about it. I haven’t prepared for it. I am so good, so ready for these things that were my birthright. I do not enjoy them. I know they have warped me. But it will be so hard to deal with a life empty of them. And there are the daily sufferings. You ghosts have known them, but who else? I can sleep in the rain, wrapped inside my poncho, listening to the drops beat on the rubber like small explosions, then feeling the water pour in rivulets inside my poncho, soaking me as I lie in the mud. I can live in the dirt, sit and lie and sleep in the dirt, it is my chair and my bed, my floor and my walls, this clay. And like all of you, I have endured diarrhea as only an animal should endure it, squatting a yard off a trail and relieving myself unceremoniously, naturally, animally. Deprivations of food. Festering, open sores. Worms. Heat. Aching crotch that nags for fulfillment, any emptying hole that will relieve it. Who appreciates my sufferings? Who do I suffer for? "
31 " We been abandoned, Lieutenant. We been kicked off the edge of the goddamn cliff. They don’t know how to fight it, and they don’t know how to stop fighting it. "
32 " Vietnam War was, to say the obvious, deeply controversial. One of its main dividing lines was whether a young American would step forward to serve or under what conditions he would find a way to stay here at home. It is beyond debate that many who opposed both the war and military service doubled down on their dissent by denigrating the value of serving and the morality of those who did the hardest fighting in the war. "
