The chapter Speaking of Courage is referring to the fortitude it takes for one to wake up every morning and realize they’re at war; and then to conduct themselves accordingly for their survival, and that of those around them. And, due to this difficult situation of performing strenuous tasks at war (or some might even consider hell) the young men are forced to dissemble their emotions. In this way, hiding their cowardice is considered courage; but to even wholeheartedly understand this, it seems impossible as for the lack of experience, and the taciturn unarticulated remaining soldiers. But, occasionally when that esoteric spinelessness surfaces, it scars those who are accompanied to its familiarity with guilt. Now to them, life away from the war seems utopian; and their efforts in trying to adjust back to the mundane is feckless as searching for a needle in hay.
To delineate this is very difficult, therefore O’Brien adds fallacies where he finds it germane, in order to relate to the naïve readers. Even so with the reader’s disconnect from “reality,” all the soldiers can think about is home, along with the past. Take for instance Curt Lemon who still held on to his fear of dentists while in the middle of war. The difference between the young men fighting and us, is that we cannot comprehend even if we sincerely wanted to, and that they choose to eschew the truth that is being thrown at them. As for O’Brien’s betrayal of courage, I have still yet to congeal an opinion; right now my thoughts are scattered with no string to piece them together into anything nearly coherent.
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