17. A Sense of Loss

In "The Ghost Soldiers" O'Brien writes about his experiences getting shot. After his second gun wound, he is sent to a battalion supply headquarters and when his old comrades come to see him, O'Brien experienced some new feelings. "I felt something shift inside me. It was anger, partly, but it was also a sense of pure and total loss: I didn't fit in anymore," (188). After all the things he had been through, and now he lost the only friends he had. Being a soldier and being away from home is an extreme loss in itself, but then to be considered a misfit by the only people you have left would be an added sadness. The whole war experience seems so lonely. The soldiers honestly had no one and nothing. That would definitely change a person negatively. O'Brien poses the idea that that cold lonely feeling never really leaves. I still cannot imagine what that would be like coming back home and not being able to move on and get rid of all those bad feelings. It would have to take a very strong individual to pull that off.