Part of him lies dead with his fellow soldiers in the jungle of Vietnam, but as a survivor he must live on with the rest of himself that still remains in “flesh” (5). The war is so ingrained in the speaker's life that he can not escape it. At the monument “a red bird's / wings cutting across my stare. / The sky. A plane in the sky.” (22-24) At every moment the threat of an enemy plane dropping bombs from the sky may invade his consciousness, replacing otherwise harmless sights with a living nightmare The speaker is incapable of forgetting his war experience and losing the history of the war. As a survivor, his duty is to pass on his memories to others so that they may know what war is really like. The speaker is finally relieved of his isolation
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Throughout his collection Komunyakaa describes soldiers as aware of their mortality yet dedicated to the end of fighting through war and leaving unscathed. Komunyakaa’s poem “Thanks” not only conveys the speaker's gratitude for surviving the war but also displays his internal battle regarding why he survived. The speaker addresses this question by giving thanks to the nature that saved him. The speaker describes the omnipresent possibility of death in the war. For example, the speaker could have been sniped by “a soundless rifle” (5), killed by a “gleaming metal” (19) gun, or blown to pieces by tripping a “single thread” (25). The speaker’s choice of adjectives for these instruments of death suggest just how much they blended in with nature if it had not been for the acts in nature that alerted the speaker of the dangers present, he would have been killed in Vietnam and for this reason the speaker is thankful. Although he survived, the speaker doesn't necessarily feel content with living while his other friends died. He does not understand why he should live among all the great men who died in the war, as “[He doesn’t] know why the intrepid / sun touched the bayonet” (35-36). By calling the sun intrepid he make it seem like the sun was purposefully sending its rays to the bayonet to be scene by the speaker. The speaker does not understand why the sun or any other aspects of nature chose to save him while disregarding his friends, which leaves him unsettled as a survivor of the
Throughout his collection Komunyakaa describes soldiers as aware of their mortality yet dedicated to the end of fighting through war and leaving unscathed. Komunyakaa’s poem “Thanks” not only conveys the speaker's gratitude for surviving the war but also displays his internal battle regarding why he survived. The speaker addresses this question by giving thanks to the nature that saved him. The speaker describes the omnipresent possibility of death in the war. For example, the speaker could have been sniped by “a soundless rifle” (5), killed by a “gleaming metal” (19) gun, or blown to pieces by tripping a “single thread” (25). The speaker’s choice of adjectives for these instruments of death suggest just how much they blended in with nature if it had not been for the acts in nature that alerted the speaker of the dangers present, he would have been killed in Vietnam and for this reason the speaker is thankful. Although he survived, the speaker doesn't necessarily feel content with living while his other friends died. He does not understand why he should live among all the great men who died in the war, as “[He doesn’t] know why the intrepid / sun touched the bayonet” (35-36). By calling the sun intrepid he make it seem like the sun was purposefully sending its rays to the bayonet to be scene by the speaker. The speaker does not understand why the sun or any other aspects of nature chose to save him while disregarding his friends, which leaves him unsettled as a survivor of the