It's A Mystery

    When a soldier returns home from war, life is never the same.  Every day is haunted by memories and even guilt at times.  Although many soldiers learn to cope and live life happily some need more closure and assurance.  Tim O'Brien speaks in "Field Trip" of his own return to Vietnam in search on closure and relief.  When O'Brien returns to Vietnam, his main goal is to "make peace" with himslef over Kiowa's death. He symbolically places Kiowa's moccasins in the place of his death hoping for some sort of relief and closure.  It seems as though he realizes there will never be closure because he was part of  a mystery, The Vietnam War.  Even today the complete reasoning behind the war is unknown and soldiers still suffer the memories from a brutal, purposeless war.  Some like O'Brien tell their horror stories as a sort of coping method and others tend to push the memories away.  My Uncle served in Vietnam and he never speaks of what happened.  The only mention I have ever heard of him making a connection to the war, was his visit to the Vietnam War Memorial, where even then silence was his method of coping. I find it said that like O'Brien and my Uncle, many soldiers grieve and suffer indefinitely from a war with so reasoning, providing no sense of closure.