Men at War

A Discussion Guide

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 Men
Menat War
at War
In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien begins with descriptions of the talismans, treasures,
and fears he and his comrades carry into battle in Vietnam. The autobiographical stories reveal
one painful truth after another about the horrors of war. One Bullet Away chronicles the pun-
ishing training it takes to become an elite Recon Marine and reveals the process that makes
Marine officers such legendary leaders. Nathaniel Fick offers a vivid, thoughtful account of
fighting on the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq, and reveals the crushing pressure young
leaders endure in combat. In The Heart and the Fist, Eric Greitens chronicles his amazing
journey from humanitarian to Rhodes scholar to Navy SEAL. Serving in Afghanistan and Iraq
teaches Greitens that peace means more than the absence of war. These three intensely personal
and provocative accounts of men at war offer thoughtful insight into military culture and train-
ing, and the terrifying realities of combat.

Making Connections
Questions Pulling the Books Together

1. Fick and Greitens both volunteered for military service, while O’Brien was drafted. Does the fact that O’Brien was drafted
make him a “reluctant warrior” compared to Fick and Greitens?

2. Although a work of fiction, the stories in The Things They Carried are based upon O’Brien’s own experiences as a soldier
in Vietnam. The characters resemble soldiers O’Brien served with in the war. What advantages and disadvantages are there in
telling his story as autobiographical fiction instead of a straightforward memoir as Fick and Greitens write?

3. In One Bullet Away, Fick says he “first felt fear in Iraq on the initial drive into Nasiriyah.” He felt it the second time when
they seized the airfield. “The fear” he writes, “came from realizing that my commanders also felt the effects of fear and stress.
Fear filled the little cracks and growing voids in the trust that I had placed in them” (p.236). How do Fick’s feelings relate to
what O’Brien says in The Things They Carried, that a soldier’s greatest fear was embarrassment (p.21)?

4. How does Greitens’s experience in Officer Candidate School compare to Nathaniel Fick’s in One Bullet Away?

5. After reading both One Bullet Away and The Heart and the Fist, which training do you think is more grueling—Marine
Recon or Navy SEAL?

6. In both One Bullet Away and The Heart and the Fist, there are many references to ancient Greek history, literature, and
philosophy. Identify examples of how these classical references are used in both books.

7. Each author approaches the subject of war from a unique, personal perspective. Which perspective resonates most strongly
with you and why?

8. Does it matter what war is being written about, or is the event of war similar enough that they can be read together?

9. What do you think O’Brien, Fick, and Greitens would say about the concept of “just war”? Would they support the argu-
ment that there can be “good” or “righteous” reasons for going to war?
The Things They Carried
The Things They Carried
by Tim O’Brien

1. What are some of the intangible things the soldiers carry in the title story? Which do you
think is the greater burden, the tangible or intangible? Who in the unit do you think carries the
greatest emotional burden?

2. Of the good-luck charms the soldiers carry, the most macabre is the thumb from a dead VC
that Norman Bowker carries. When Mitchell Sanders cuts it from the corpse of the teenage boy, he
says “there’s a definite moral here” (p.13). What do you think the moral is that Sanders refers to?

3. How does the death of Ted Lavender affect the men?

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4. “They were afraid of dying but they were even more afraid to show it” (p. 20). Why do you 978-0-618-70641-9 Paperback
think the men are more afraid of showing their fear of dying than death itself? In what ways do 978-0-547-42029-5 E-book
they cope with their fears?

5. On the morning after Ted Lavender is killed, why does Lieutenant Cross burn Martha’s letters and photographs?

6. In the story “Love,” the narrator meets Jimmy Cross many years after the war and says “he’d never forgiven himself for
Lavender’s death” (p. 27). Why does Cross feel guilty for Lavender’s death? How was he responsible? Should Cross blame
himself?

7. In the story “On the Rainy River,” the narrator begins: “This is one story I’ve never told before. Not brother or sister, not
even to my wife. . . . Even now I’ll admit the story makes me squirm” (p. 39). What has made him want to tell the story now?

8. The narrator has to choose between accepting the draft or dodging it by going to Canada. He asks, “What would you do?”
(p. 56) How would you answer?

9. In “How to Tell a True War Story,” O’Brien writes: “A true war story is never moral” (p. 68). What does this mean? Is
it possible to tell a true war story? O’Brien’s stories are autobiographical but works of fiction. To what extent can fiction be
true?

10. O’Brien writes: “In any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to
happen” (p.71). How is it possible to tell a “true” story when what happened cannot be separated from what seemed to hap-
pen?

11. The stories “Speaking of Courage,” “Notes,” and “In the Field” all deal with Kiowa’s death told from different per-
spectives. How do these different perspectives shape your understanding of Kiowa’s death and the incident’s effect on the
platoon?

12. What are some literary devices O’Brien uses to make the reader feel the immediacy and reality of the war?

13. In “How to Tell a War Story,” O’Brien writes: “The truths are contradictory. It can be argued, for instance, that war is
grotesque. But in truth war is also beauty” (p. 80). What are some examples of the paradoxes of war that O’ Brien reveals
through his stories?

14. “A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe” (p.78). Which of the stories made your stomach believe?
What is it about them that felt “true”?

15. In “The Lives of the Dead,” O’Brien writes: “Stories can save us” (p. 225). How do stories save the narrator?
One Bullet Away
One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer
by Nathaniel Fick

1. How does Sergeant Olds compare to drill instructors you have seen portrayed in films and
television? What impression does Sergeant Olds make on Fick?

2. What are some examples of how Fick and his fellow candidates are acclimated to violence
at Quantico?

3. What five rules of Marine Corps leadership does Captain Fanning share with the candi-
dates? Which of the rules does the book’s title reference? What does “one bullet away” refer
to in the leadership rule?

4. What does the Infantry Officer Course (IOC) represent in the Marine Corps? What is 978-0-618-55613-7 Hardcover
taught in IOC? How does that training compare to the rest Fick receives? 978-0-618-77343-5 Paperback
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5. What is Fick’s reaction to being placed in command of Bravo Company’s weapons platoon?

6. What are Fick’s first impressions of Jacobabad? Why does his unit’s mission there quickly become a frustration?

7. Before leaving for Kandahar, Fick listens to a CD of a 9/11 benefit concert and says, “A feeling of profound gratitude that
I was in a position to get revenge for 9/11 surged through me” (p.106). He says the intensity of the feeling surprised him.
Do you think this was a common sentiment among the military sent to Afghanistan following the terrorist attacks? Ten years
later, how do you think this sentiment has changed for soldiers serving in Afghanistan?

8. What does Fick mean when he says, “We never returned to the country we’d left? (p.142)? What changes does Fick
observe?

9. What disturbs Fick about the “bluster” he observes when he returns to the United States (p.143)?

10. In what ways do the Marine Corps’s reconnaissance units differ from special operations units like the Navy SEAL and
Army Special Forces?

11. What motivates Fick to apply for Recon training? How would you characterize the training he receives? What is the
worst part of the training for Fick?

12. Before the invasion of Iraq, Fick and other officers listen to a lecture on “rules of engagement.” The lecture reminds
Fick of St. Augustine’s “just war” theory he learned in college (p.182). What do you think of the concept of “rules of en-
gagement”? How is it possible to fight a war according to rules? Is it reasonable to expect that soldiers will follow rules in
combat? Is it possible for war to be just? Under what circumstances can war be considered justified?

13. What is the “hyperclarity” that Fick places so much importance on in combat?

14. What is Fick’s reaction to the officers photographing and laughing at the insurgents his unit killed? What are his feelings
about the men they’d killed?

15. When Fick’s unit comes across the wounded girl, what does he realize about the difference between training scenarios
and reality?

16. Why does the captain want to relieve Gunny Wynn for insubordination? What is Fick’s initial reaction to the captain’s
decision? How does Fick convince the captain to reconsider his decision?

17. What insights does Fick offer into the differences between military ideals and military practice?
The Heart and the Fist
The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian,
The Making of a Navy SEAL by Eric Greitens
1. Greitens opens his memoir dramatically with a suicide attack on his barracks in Fallujah.
Why does he open the memoir with this incident? In what way is this incident a pivotal moment
in his life?

2. What effect does the death of Lieutenant Travis Manion have on Greitens?

3. Greitens writes: “On the frontlines—in humanitarian crises, in wars overseas, and around
some kitchen tables here at home—I’d seen that peace is more than the absence of war, and
that a good life entails more than the absence of suffering” (p.11). What is needed to create and
maintain the “good peace, a solid peace” of which Greitens speaks?
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4. How do the heroes of history and legend that Greitens reads about in his youth shape his 978-0-547-75038-5 Paperback
later interests? (Coming April 2012)
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5. What does Greitens mean when he says that after a few weeks of attending college, he felt as
if he’d been lied to (p.15)? Why is he disappointed in public policy studies?

6. When Greitens returns from China, why does he decide to take up boxing? In addition to boxing, what are some other
things Greitens learns from his trainer, Earl Blair?

7. When he sees his grandfather for the last time, what does Greitens not do that leaves him disappointed in himself?

8. While volunteering in the war-torn former Yugoslavia, why does Greitens refuse to take pictures of a donor who has come
to hand out gum to refugee children? What did he dislike about the aid organization advertisements for refugee children?

9. Greitens says, “It was in Gasinci that I got my first lesson in international diplomacy” (p. 60). What does he learn?

10. When Greitens visits a local church congregation to show slides of photographs he took in Bosnia and Croatia, the ques-
tions the audience asks leads him to a sort of epiphany. What does he realize?

11. In Gaza, what does Greitens learn about poverty and the root causes of insurgency and terrorism?

12. After traveling to Rwanda, Colombia, India, and other places around the world, Greitens concludes that aid is not
enough. He writes, “It took people with courage to protect those people in need of protection … I could keep talking or I
could live my beliefs” (p. 125). How does this realization lead him to enlisting in Navy SEAL training?

13. What are the various reasons the men in Greitens’s group want to be SEALs? Is Greitens’s motive unique?

14. Greitens says, “It’s true that SEALs are capable of great violence, but that’s not what makes SEALs truly special”
(p.189). What is it that makes the SEALs special?

15. Writing about Afghanistan, what does Greitens mean when he says, “You can’t buy peace but you can sometimes make a
down payment on it” (p. 223).

16. In what ways does Greitens embody the characteristics of the classic citizen-warrior?

17. In the opening chapter, Greitens says Travis Manion reminded him of a line from a speech Pericles made to the families
of the Athenian war dead: “What you have left behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into
the lives of others” (p. 30). How is the quote reflective of what Greitens has done and continues to do with his life?
Recommended Further Reading Recommended Further Reading

Caputo, Philip. A Rumor of War. Pimlico, 1999.

Greitens, Eric. The Warrior Heart. Houghton Mifflin Fall, 2012
Halberstadt, Hans. Battle Rattle: The Stuff a Soldier Carries. Zenith, 2006.
Hedges, Chris. War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. Anchor, 2002.
Herr, Michael. Dispatches. Vintage, 1991.
Hodgins, Michael. Reluctant Warrior. Ballantine, 1997.
Junger, Sebastian. War. Twelve, 2010.
Krakauer, Jon. Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman. Doubleday, 2009.
Manchester, William. Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War. Back Bay, 2002.
Marlantes, Karl. Matterhorn. Grove, 2009.
O’ Brien, Tim. Going After Cacciato. Broadway, 1999.
Ricks, Thomas E. Making the Corps. Scribner, 1998.
Shay, Jonathan. Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming. Scribner, 2002.
Sledge, E. B. With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa. Presidio, 1990
Smithson, Ryan. Ghosts of War: The True Story of a 19-Year-Old GI. Harper, 2009.
Wasdin, Howard E. and Stephen Templin. SEAL Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy SEAL Sniper. St. Martin’s, 2011.
Webb, James. Fields of Fire. Bantam, 2001.

Additional Resources
Eric Greitens www.ericgreitens.com/

History of the Draft usmilitary.about.com/od/deploymentsconflicts/l/bldrafthistory.htm

Iraq-U.S. War—ProCon.org usiraq.procon.org/

One Bullet Away Video www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZHHfrKpp4M

Tim O’Brien www.illyria.com/tob/tobbio.html

Vietnam Pix www.vietnampix.com/

Vietnam War: Digital History www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/vietnam/index.cfm

Vietnam War Uniforms and Equipment www.vietnamgear.com/equipment.aspx

Video: Tim O’Brien and Nate Frick www.hmhbooks.com/timobrien/

The War on Terrorism: Afghanistan and the Taliban www.ecu.edu/cs-lib/govdoc/afghanistan.cfm

This guide was written by Edward T. Sullivan, a freelance writer and librarian.

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