If I Die In A Combat Zone Essay

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A memorable line from If I Die in a Combat Zone by Tim O’Brien is “The war in Vietnam drifted in and out of human lives, taking them or sparing them like a headless, berserk taxi hack, without evident cause, a war fought for uncertain reasons.” (O’Brien, 138) The ending of this quote particularly reflects the views of Vietnam, which is the specific reason I found this quote memorable. I feel this way because people living during the Vietnam era didn’t see this as a crucial war to be apart of. Even looking back on it in our history classes, there was very little necessity to partake in the Vietnam War. I also believe that if O’Brien was to put this excerpt anywhere else in his book, its significance and effectiveness would still be the same. …show more content…
When talking about “a headless, berserk taxi hack,” (O’Brien, 138) I can picture a headless man killing people involuntarily because it’s not his fault he doesn’t have a head and can’t see (but he shouldn’t have been driving for these same reasons either.) I can unfortunately identify all the blood covering the city streets and smelling the guts from decaying carcasses splattered all around. I can even see and smell a fire coming from the taxi’s engine that has slammed up against a concrete or brick building. Hearing screams and sirens wailing would be inevitable from this crazy taxi ride. In conclusion, this is why “The war in Vietnam drifted in and out of human lives, taking them or sparing them like a headless, berserk taxi hack, without evident cause, a war fought for uncertain reasons,” (O’Brien, 138) is a critical sentence to have in O’Brien’s book. The way this sentence can be manipulated and placed into any part of If I Die in a Combat Zone speaks volumes about its importance and its relativity to the circumstances during the Vietnam War. This is why I found this quote to be the most memorable, important, and significant throughout this non-fiction book’s

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