where broken is (not) easily fixed - TTTC

"What happened ... was what happened to all of them. You come over clean and you get dirty and then afterward it's never the same. A question of degree. Some make it intact, some don't make it at all."

(p. 109)

Again, in the chapter "Sweethart of the Song Tra Bong" O'Brien reinforces the theme that war changes people in unspeakable ways. the excerpted quote by Rat Kiley emphasizes this quite simply. the change really does come in degrees, though. it's the same in any situation. once you've experienced something, you're changed in some way. there's no going back, there's no "rewind" button or a "Ctrl + z" function that reverses the effect of something. it's like a statue that breaks: sure, you can glue the pieces back together. maybe it's a quick fix, maybe it takes a little more reconstruction. but no matter what, you're going to be able to see the little crack and glue line that gets left behind. maybe others can't see it right away, but as soon as they know it's there, they can't avoid it either.

this theme of irreversible events and their subsequent effects has shown up many times in the book thus far, and I'm sure it will show up again.