If I Die in a Combat Zone. Tim O’Brien

and because some regulation said he had no choice. But he ordered me to see the chaplain first.

      ‘The chaplain weeds out the pussies from men with real problems,’ he said. ‘Seems this last year we been using too much shit on the crop. It’s all coming up pussies, and the poor chaplain over there in his little church is busy as hell, just trying to weed out all you pussies. Good Lord ought to take pity on the chaplain, ought to stop manufacturing so damn many pussies up there.’

      The chaplain was named Edwards. He had thick red hair, a firm handshake, a disciplined but friendly mouth and a gently plump belly. Edwards was a man designed to soothe trainees, custom-made.

      ‘What’s the problem, mess hall not dishing out the bennies?’ Edwards was trying to soften me up, trying to make me like him, trying to turn the real problem into something not really worth pressing, trying to make all problems buckle under the weight of a friendly, God-fearing, red-headed officer. How often does an officer joke with you, man-to-man?

      Smiling and saying no sir, my real problem is one of conscience and philosophy and intellect and emotion and fear and physical hurt and a desire to live chastened by a desire to be good, and also, underneath, a desire to prove myself a hero, I explained, in the broadest terms, what troubled me. Edwards listened and nodded. He took notes, and smiled whenever I smiled, and with his encouragement I gained steam and made my case. Which was: Chaplain, I believe human life is very valuable. I believe, and this has no final truth to it, that human life is valuable because people, unlike the other species, are aware of good and bad; because men are aware they should pursue the good and not the bad; and because, often, people do in fact try to pursue the good, even if the pursuit brings painful personal consequences. I believe, therefore, that a man is most a man when he tries to recognize and understand what is good – when he tries to ask in a reasonable way about things: is it good? And I believe, finally, that a man cannot be fully a man until, deciding that something is right, his actions make real the suspect bravery of the mind.