http://www.cracked.com/article_17019_5-real-life-soldiers-who-make-rambo-look-like-pussy.html
This just amazed me, and the way I think of these men, having now learned a bit about them, is similar to the way I think of Lee Harvey Oswald from Libra. Those men did these incredible things, that any ordinary person would never be able to do. Lee Harvey Oswald is similar. Not that many people have killed a president before. Just like these amazing war veterans and Oswald, they needed either incredible bravery or lots of stupidity to do what they do. I tend to learn towards bravery for these war veterans but I'm still not too sure about Oswald. It definitely takes courage to stood yourself in the arm, but it's also not exactly a bright idea. In a way, those men that did these amazing things, such as taking German outposts by themselves, walking out of a concentration camp, or sniping people with a rifle is also a bit stupid. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not hating on these people or saying that they shouldn't have done what they did. I just think that they were a bit reckless when they did what they did. Obviously it did pay off for them, but it didn't exactly pay off for Oswald.
Also, can't forget about poor Hiroo Onoda. The man was left on an island, his men were all killed (except this one guy that surrendered, but that's beside the point), and he was more or less living off coconuts and the occasional animal. He had been wearing the same uniform from when he was deployed, and managed to keep his gun in working condition, stockpiled 500 rounds of ammo, and had many hand grenades. However, he still had managed to kill around 30 Filipinos and wounded several more. The only reason Onoda didn't surrender or kill himself was because his commanding officer had told him not to, and that they'd come back for him. I'm amazed by his dedication to his commanding officer and to his duty. This definitely took bravery. I'm not sure if I would see what he did as requiring stupidity. To a certain degree, I guess.
But back to the original matter at hand (though I regret nothing about going off about those awesome people), Oswald is like these people in that they all did something that you wouldn't expect. Granted it might not be the most admirable things that they did, like conducting guerrilla attacks on unsuspecting and innocent civilians (for Onoda) or shooting the president, but it still takes bravery and the occasional stupidity. It also takes dedication, either for sticking to the job, or even carefully thinking of a plan. I know, it's kind of a stretch, but as I was thinking about how badass those men were, I couldn't help but think (in my semi-strange mind) that they shared some qualities with Oswald. Maybe they don't, but who knows. It's been well established that it's hard to really describe Oswald. I would say more, but my brain has run out of ideas. Hopefully as I continue to read Libra, I'll be able to understand Oswald better, but who knows? Maybe I'll just get even more confused than I already am.
It does seem harsh to describe Onoda as "stupid" in the way we might say about some of Lee's actions, because there is a strong cultural idea of honor at work, a man doing his sworn duty to the (absurdly literal) letter of the law. But looked at from the outside, by those of us who are not under the sway of any such concept of honor, it does look kind of stupid, or at least foolish and pointless: like a guy working all night stocking shelves in a store after it's closed just because his boss never came and told him to go home.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's more apt to describe Onoda as living in a fiction--a world in which his actions make sense, and have a strategic kind of coherence, but which is fully incompatible with the rest of the world's narrative about World War II. In a quite real sense, we could say that the war actually lasted 30 years longer for him than everyone else--the war *was* still going on.
DeLillo is starting to play with similar ideas for Oswald--we see him as conceiving his own life in fictional/"historical" terms, narrating it as he experiences it. And his narrative often does not coincide with the rest of ours.