Portraits and Landscapes A Collection of Short Stories
War is a complex business. I’m listening to Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried.” He does an extraordinary job of bringing together the brutality of war with its humor and pathos. His characters are so real they become familiars and step out of the pages to sit next to me. As an ex-soldier his voice is clear and strong. His moralizing is implicit rather than explicit, and this makes his words incredibly sobering.
Before this book I listened to “All the Light We Cannot See”, another take on war and what it does to young men, be they German or French.
I haven’t seen American Sniper yet, but I am sure it will be yet another look at combat and its meaning. In western society where we’re generally free to express ourselves, all of these diverse perspectives on what it means to be a soldier, are important.
In my book of short stories, like Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper, I’ve attempted to go into a Sniper’s mind. Like theirs, my exploration is based on a true story that I read recently, with verbatim accounts from a sniper himself.
After listening to and studying all of this recent input on the meaning of killing other humans, I fail to come up with any simple answers to the brutality or the righteousness of it. Perhaps this quote from Starman, one of my favorite movies, covers it: “”Intelligent but savage. Shall I tell you (humanity) what I find beautiful about you? You (humanity) are at your very best when things are worst.”
Below is an exert taken from “The Sniper”, which is part of my collection of short stories, Portraits and Landscapes. This one, like American Sniper, is yet another snapshot of a Sniper’s mind.
“He replied, “Sir I knew this man well; he was my friend, and I want to give him a proper burial, out of respect sir.”
His commander looked him in the eye from under his cap, pulled low over his forehead and paused for a second. Then he curtly nodded his head, saying nothing, and turned around to head back to base camp.
The sniper went down to the edge of the river and dug in the soft dirt with a spade he brought with him, unearthing rocks and sand. He placed his friend’s body in the shallow hole in front of him, and he stood beside it with his head hung low. As he looked across the softly running water, the moon came up, and he saw its reflection like a piece of melon, slice across the dark liquid.”
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