SSRJ 2 D Walker

SSRJ # 2 D. Walker

·         This piece was deep, it is good how the narrator tried to help the less fortunate with his knowledge in the medical field. However, I feel like he was seeking forgiveness from someone outside of himself. When in fact, he should have focused on forgiving himself internally. The war hero with PDSS and has internal issues with it reminds me of a street gangster. Like the war hero, the gangster has murdered, killed people with drugs, etc. In the beginning they both think they are right, fighting for country, gang and/or family. The soldier’s, in both scenarios, still do not know why they have to kill, they search for answers and find nothing. I know many war veterans and gangsters and their internal conflicts are mirror images.

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            In this piece Walker uses the plot, mainly the climax to illustrate the theme of seeking forgiveness. During the whole story, the narrator is seeking answers to why they fought this war and mainly for forgiveness for his crimes, specifically the decapitation of a farmer. The war veteran used smoking marijuana, studying drawing and various jobs to try to distract and forget about the mental images burned into his head. Eventually, his search for forgiveness leads him to repairing lost thumbs on a North Vietnamese war veteran. The narrator wants to fix Dinh’s thumbs, feeling it will help repair damage done by a war he fought in. the failed surgery is used to show that fixing Dinh’s thumbs will not replace the dead farmer or young girls innocence. He was suppose to fail. This way he can have that plane ride home, feeling just like coming home from the war. The narrator needs to seek internal forgiveness, not approval from a doctor in Vietnam, his own family, or whoever. Once he realizes what he did is done and he cannot take it back, he will find the forgiveness and psychological peace he is seeking throughout the plot.

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      The only comment I have is that in interpreting this piece, me and many others cannot ever fully understand the depth of the mental scars he has from the narrator’s war experience. I am assuming most people have not decapitated people, but I have seen gangsters shoot people so close to me that blood splattered onto my shirt. As a young man seeing this I had trouble comprehending the meaning of war, guns, violence, etc. So the soldier in our story as well as any war veterans should never be judged because while we do homework and read short stories in a peaceful library soldiers are experiencing these things all over the world.

      P.S. happy superbowl day you MoFo's, go Giants