War is hell, and funny

I wanted to comment a little bit on the humor in the book Dispatches. I know this is supposed to be a very serious book, and it is, but when you come across something that makes you chuckle it just jumps out off the page. Kind of ironic that in a subject like war, that seems like the epitome of seriousness, comedy can still prevail, if for only a few sentences.

Take page 34 for example. "There was a famous story, some reporters asked a door gunner, "How can you shoot women and children?" and he'd answered, "It's easy, you just don't lead 'em so much." Now I'm not saying that shooting women and children is a hilarious thing but I find it amusing that the soldier was so far gone that he answered the question literally.

On page 28 the narrator describes a Marine walking around in the jungle because his group was tired of waiting for action and that "He'd come out to see if he could draw a little fire...I didn't want to bother him while he was working." This passage is a good example of how war can make men ridiculous and I hope I'm not the only one who chuckled at this passage.

The last thing I found amusing was on page 67 when the narrator is describing a scene in which a soldier was going to skin a dead Vietnamese person. The lieutenant comes over and yells at them saying reports were around and finished with, "There's a time and place for everything." Once again, not laughing at skinning dead people but just the fact that it seems like the lieutenant is going to come over there to let them have it but instead just basically says "Wait a while would ya?".