Redeployment

“The thinking comes later, when they give you the time.” 

The narrator of the story can see that much of his time in the war is thoughtless. He has no time to dwell on his actions while the actions are occurring or while he is in danger. For the Marines, decompression tends to mean drinking or going to strip clubs, both of which are other ways to avoid thinking. In the military, their time is not their own. When the narrator reclaims his time, he goes to considerable effort to distract himself from thinking

“We took my combat pay and did a lot of shopping. Which is how America fights back against the terrorists.” 

One of the challenges the veterans in the book face is that it is peacetime in America, while the American military is overseas at war. Civilians have a limited perspective on what is happening in Iraq, and engaging with returning veterans is a problem when the veterans can’t express what has happened to them, and civilians can’t find a way to help them. His wife’s shopping trip is her best attempt at helping the narrator reconnect to something like normal life.

“I didn’t see any tears of joy when we burst in, M4s at the ready. They were dead men. Then we doped them up, CASE-VAC’d them out, and they had to live again.”

After freeing two tortured men, the Marines tell themselves that they did a good thing. The narrator does not believe that they actually rescued the men, who had been ready to die.