Tim O’Brien - If I Die in a Combat Zone

Harper Press An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

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This Harper Perennial Modern Classics edition published in 2006

Published by Flamingo in 1995

and reprinted five times

Previously published in paperback by Paladin 1989

and by Grafton Books 1980

Reprinted twice

First published in Great Britain by Calder and Boyars Ltd 1973

Copyright © Tim O’Brien 1969, 1970, 1972, 1973

PS Section © Travis Elborough 2006

PS ™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

Tim O’Brien asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Portions of this book appeared in Playboy , the Washington Post , the Minneapolis Tribune and Worthington Daily Globe

Excerpts from ‘Laches’ from The Dialogues of Plato translated by Benjamin Jowett © Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1953. Used by permission of the publisher.

Excerpt from ‘The Waste Land’ from Collected Poems 1909–62 by T.S. Eliot. Used by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc and Faber & Faber.

Lines from ‘Homeward Bound’ by Paul Simon

© 1966 by Paul Simon. Used by permission of Charing Cross Music, Inc.

Excerpt from ‘Hugh Selwyn Mauberly – IV’ from Personae by Ezra Pound. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation and Faber & Faber Ltd.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007204977

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Version: 2015-07-02

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Names and physical characteristics

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have been changed.

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

1 Days

2 Pro Patria

3 Beginning

4 Nights

5 Under the Mountain

6 Escape

7 Arrival

8 Alpha Company

9 Ambush

10 The Man at the Well

11 Assault

12 Mori

13 My Lai in May

14 Step Lightly

15 Centurion

16 Wise Endurance

17 July

18 The Lagoon

19 Dulce et Decorum

20 Another War

21 Hearts and Minds

22 Courage Is a Certain Kind of Preserving

23 Don’t I Know You?

Keep Reading

P.S. Ideas, Interviews & Features …

About the author

Relying on Memory and Imagination: Tim O’Brien talks to Travis Elborough

About the book

What the Papers Said

Box Me Up and Send Me Home: A Timeline

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lo maggior don che Dio per sua

larghezza/fesse creando …/

… fu de la volontà la libertate

THE DIVINE COMEDY

Par . V, 19 ff.

‘It’s incredible, it really is, isn’t it? Ever think you’d be humping along some crazy-ass trail like this one, jumping up and down out of the dirt, jumping like a goddamn bullfrog, dodging bullets all day? Don’t know about you, but I sure as hell never thought I’d ever be going on all day like this. Back in Cleveland I’d still be asleep.’ Barney smiled. ‘Jesus, you ever see anything like this?’

‘Yesterday,’ I said.

‘Yesterday? Shit, yesterday wasn’t nothing like this.’

‘Snipers yesterday, snipers today. What’s the difference?’

‘Guess so,’ he said. ‘They’ll put holes in your ass either way, right? But shit, yesterday wasn’t nothing like this.’

‘Snipers yesterday, snipers today,’ I said again.

Barney laughed. ‘You don’t like snipers, do you? Yesterday there were snipers, a few of them, but Jesus, today that’s all there is. Can’t wait ’til tonight. My God, tonight will be lovely. They’ll really give us hell. I’m digging me a foxhole like a basement.’

We lay next to each other until the volley of bullets stopped. We didn’t bother to raise our rifles. We didn’t know which way to shoot, and it was all over anyway.

Barney picked up his helmet and took out a pencil and put a mark on it. ‘See,’ he said, grinning and showing me ten marks, ‘that’s ten times today. Count them – one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, TEN! Ever been shot at ten times in one day?’

‘Yesterday,’ I said. ‘And the day before that and the day before that.’

‘Oh, it’s been worse today.’

‘Did you count yesterday?’

‘No. Didn’t think of it until today. That proves today’s worse.’

‘Well, you should have counted yesterday.’

‘Jesus,’ Barney said. ‘Get off your ass, let’s get going. Company’s moving out.’ Barney put his pencil away and jumped up like a jumping jack, a little kid on a pogo stick, then he pulled me by the hand.

I walked a few steps in back of him. ‘You’re the optimistic sort, aren’t you, Barney? This crap doesn’t get you down.’

‘Can’t let it get you down,’ he said. ‘That’s how GIs get wasted.’

‘What time is it?’

‘I guess about four, judging by the sun.’

‘Good.’

‘What’s good about four, you getting tired? I’ll carry some of that stuff for you.’

‘No, it’s okay. We should stop soon. I’ll help you dig that basement.’

A shrill sound, like a woman shrieking, sizzled past our ears, carried on a waft of the day’s air.

‘Jesus Christ almighty,’ Barney shouted, already flat on his belly.

‘Jesus Christ almighty,’ I said, kneeling beside him.

‘You okay?’

‘I guess. You okay?’

‘Yeah. They were aiming at us that time, I swear. You and me.’

‘They know who’s after them,’ I said. ‘You and me.’

He giggled. ‘Sure, we’d give ’em hell, wouldn’t we. Strangle the little pricks.’

‘Let’s go, that wasn’t worth stopping for.’

The trail linked a cluster of hamlets together, little villages to the north and west of the Bantangan Peninsula. It was a fairly wide and flat trail, but it made dangerous slow curves and was flanked by impenetrable brush. Because two squads moved through the tangle on either side of us, protecting the flanks from close-in ambushes, the company moved slowly.

‘Captain says we’re gonna search one more ville today,’ Barney said.

‘What’s he expect to find? Whoever’s there will be gone long before we come.’

Barney shrugged, walking steadily and not looking back.

‘Well, what does he expect to find? Christ, Charlie knows where we are, he’s been shooting us up all day.’