FLaShBaCk!!!

Due to the fact that basically this entire novel is just a series of flashbacks, I figured I would spice up the title of this post to make it seem as if it is an exciting, new adventure.

"Here's a quick peace story:

A guy goes AWOL. Shacks up in Danang with a Red Cross nurse. It's a great time... The war's over, he thinks. But then one day he rejoins his unit in the bush...and the guy says, 'All that peace, man, it felt so good it hurt. I want to hurt it back.' (pg 35)".

Now, I truly do not understand the moral of this story, nor do I know whether or not this is a true flashback, seeing as the author is constantly discrediting any story he tells, but the idea of a flashback is there. One gets the idea that it is a story from the past used to illuminate what is happening in the present. I think this also reveals a lot about the sense of humor of the average serviceman. The majority of the things these men thought were funny throughtout the course of the novel have not even slightly appealed to my sense of humor. Whether this is due to the fact that I am from a totally different age or the fact that I have not been to war and it has not had the chance to affect the way I see things is impossible to figure, but the basic idea behind humor is constant, so my immediate guess is the difference in humor stems from the former.

The author uses these flashbacks as a means for storytelling. Throughout the novel, the reader attains a better understanding of the characters and their development due to the way the flashbacks mold together to give the reader a full view of the character's traits and life story.