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“A Path to Shine After” by James Post is a short story which describes the experience of an American soldier in the Vietnam War. The main character of the story, a Vietnam veteran, recalls his experience after the war when he is visited by his son’s family. The story is a complex work with many underlying themes, but the major theme of the story is the continuing psychological effect the exposure to war has on a person’s life.
The author develops this theme by contrasting the experience of the veteran during the Vietnam War with his current normal life as a family man. The narrator of the story was serving as a truck driver in a supply unit during the Vietnam War. The name of the narrator is not mentioned, only his nickname, Chickenchest, presumably given for his fragile appearance. Long after the war is over, the veteran is visited by his grown-up son and his family, including their daughter. In a brief introduction, a particular detail of their visit, a ribbon they tie over her hair, is singled out by the author: “the ribbon makes it difficult for me” (Post 124). What follows is a series of flashbacks of the Vietnam War mixed with the descriptions of the veteran’s current life. The author uses the contrast between a peaceful life of the veteran and his experience as a soldier to highlight the senselessness and cruelty of war.
In the flashbacks, the narrator recalls what is was like to serve as a truck driver in a supply line of American army forces. The veteran recalls that their supply convoy was a constant target for ambushes and that the Vietnam army used children and adolescents as part of their military operations: “this kid, maybe sixteen and bare as a newborn, […] stares at us all searching for any weapon we can get our hands on”. A more disturbing fact the author includes in the final paragraphs of the story. During one of the supply convoys, the veteran was driving through a village, and a girl appeared on the way of the trucks, wearing a dress with a flowery pattern and a ribbon. She did not move as the trucks approached closer. The narrator speculates that most likely the girl was bait: if they had stopped, they would have been ambushed and killed in a matter of minutes. The ribbon and the dress were too out of place, and the whole situation seemed too staged. However, there was no way of knowing for sure, and this experience, and this girl who stood with her arms opened as the truck approached. The feeling of guilt is still consuming the narrator when he sees a ribbon in his son’s daughters’ hair.
War is understood as something inhumane, cruel, and ruthless. War, however, is a general concept: for those who never saw a war, it has no real meaning, no human face. The message of the author’s story is that war is so cruel and senseless it leaves an ever-present trauma behind. Post makes war a personal, individualized experience, by showing the experience in the first person. The story of the girl with a ribbon is heartbreaking and the description of the narrator’s son’s daughter wearing the same ribbon, living a happy and peaceful life, makes the reader makes the reader wonder if war, any war, is really worth it. Why one girl deserves to live happily, and another die miserably under the army truck? Who is responsible for her death, the truck driver doing his duty or those people who used the girl as bait?
The traumatizing experience of the veteran also emphasizes the fact that those who experienced war suffer psychological trauma which stays with them for the rest of the life. The narrator recalls the way after the war a siren prompted him to carry his wife under cover to avoid bombing. He recalls the way he tried to attack his wife with a sledge when she told him she was leaving, “the neglect, the verbal abuse” (Post 127). It takes a very strong man to overcome the experience and an even stronger woman to accept and live with such a man. War does not consume only those whose experience is first-hand, it affects their loved ones, too. The author provides valuable insight into what it is like to live a normal life after one has seen the atrocities of war. Post also highlights the role veterans’ wives played in the post-war recovery process and the abuse they suffered for the sake of their family.
The name of the story “A Path to Shine After” is a religious quote which describes a trail a creature of terrible force lives behind. The author uses allegory to convey the idea that war is so horrifying it leaves a glowing trace in many people’s lives. The vivid description of the veteran’s flashbacks provides a comprehensive insight into what is it like to leave through this horrifying experience also gives readers some understanding of the effect war has on a person’s life.
Works Cited
Post, James. “A Path to Shine After”. Viet Nam War Generation Journal: A Tribute to Robert Olen Butler. Maple Valley: Viet Nam War Generation Press, 2003. 124-128. Print.
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