Question: How did Rat Kiley get out of active duty?
What is the author’s purpose in including this story so late in the novel and
right after The Ghost Soldiers?
Answer:
Rat
Kiley gets out of active duty, technically, because he was ‘accidentally’ shot
in the foot. However, the true story is that he went crazy and shot his own
foot, very much on purpose. It seems that the dark (the men were traveling at
night) plus the traumas of seeing men with gaping wounds or dead was too much
for Rat and he lost his mind, seeing everyone (including himself) dead when
they weren’t. The horrors of war finally push him over the edge.
O’Brien
put this in the end of the novel for a specific reason. He wanted the readers
to get to know Rat Kiley as a good soldier and well trained medic before doing
this to him. He wanted the readers to witness how the war can change a man so
completely, bring a strong man like Rat to insanity. The fact that it follows
right after “The Ghost Soldiers” is because that’s the chapter where Rat shows
remarkable medic skills when treating Tim’s bullet wound and his leaving the platoon
is first mentioned.
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