First, we should define courage. What does it mean to be courageous? Does every person in war automatically carry courage simply for joining? Or is it more? Webster's defines courage as, "the quality of being fearless or brave; to do what one thinks is right." For me, courage is different for every person because everyone has their own "right." What one person feels is brave and the best thing to do, can be the total opposite for someone else.
It is hard to define something that is not ours.
In Tim O' Brien's The Things They Carried there is a lot to be said about courage- or the lack there of. To Tim, courage is something that not everyone possesses. It is a trait that takes a decision. For Tim, the decision was war. Is running away from war harder than going to war? Or is "harder" even part of it? Perhaps, that is not the question at all. Perhaps, the question that Tim is asking himself is, what is my "right?" How can I be courageous? How can I not be a coward? After making the decision to go to war Tim states, "I was a coward. I went to war" (64). This statement clearly states Tim O'Brien's "right," even though he chose his "wrong."
Is that ok? Is choosing what one knows is wrong ok? To Tim, I suppose it was... but maybe it shouldn't be. People should not feel so much pressure or embarrassment that they are forced into doing something that goes against their idea of courage. Because if they do, then how much courage are they really showing?
People can not relate to war until they have been in war, and even then, every soldier has a different experience. It seems that the idea of being courageous is more important than actually being courageous. The soldiers spend so much of their time worrying about being brave for their country, their peers, or just, themselves, that when they show the slightest bit of weakness it becomes unbearable to handle. When Tim goes to visit Jimmy Cross years after the war is over Tim asks Jimmy if he could write about him Jimmy replies, "Make me out to be a good guy, okay? Brave and handsome, all that stuff... And do me a favor. Don't mention anything about..." (30). Jimmy has gone years since the war, yet the idea of knowing that he let someone die, that he was not brave for one moment, still haunts him. He doesn't want people to know that he was not courageous. Tim says he will not write about that part of him, yet, he does. Why would Tim go back on something that he promised? Perhaps, Tim didn't see Jimmy as a man who let someone die because of his lack of bravery. Maybe, Tim thought that Jimmy's story, his full story was needed to make him out to "be a good guy." Perhaps, Tim felt it was necessary to reveal these things in order to show just how courageous this man was.
Courage shouldn't be something that is taken away from a person with one mistake. Courage is something that lives within a person. Jimmy Cross still lead those men and did the best he could. He showed bravery and did the best he could to be what he felt a brave man should be. I mean, he is still a human. He does make mistakes. Just because a man goes to war, does that mean that he has to have this sense of bravery one hundred percent of the time?
Going back to Webster's... "to do what one thinks is right." What do you think is right? What does every individual think is right?
To be honest, I don't even know what I think is right.
