The Transformative Nature of War

One common theme revealed in both Coppola's Apocalypse Now and Yusef Komunyakaa's poem "Camouflaging the Chimera" is the transformative nature of war. 

The main protagonist in Apocalypse Now, Captain Willard, has ben psychologically changed by his time in Vietnam. In one of the first scenes in the film we see Willard lying on his bed in this liminal state, caught between worlds and existences. He has his home life in the United States, and his military life in Vietnam. He has a strong desire to leave Saigon and return to the war, and it is presented almost like an addiction he cannot shake. Willard does return to the war, and as the movie plays out there are several scenes of intense and fast guerrilla warfare that was the Vietnam War. 

Komunyakaa's poem "Camouflaging the Chimera," can serve as a description of what it was like to be a soldier in the Vietnam War. His description is similar to the scenes depicted in Apocalypse Now. "But we waited till the moon touched metal, till something almost broke inside us." It appears to me that this "thing" that Komunyakaa is referring to is that human will that exists in peacetime that soldiers need to break in order to tap into that animalistic will to survive necessary in war. It is interesting to note that soldiers who are sought out to fight in war are usually in their late teens and early twenties, like myself, and this is because they are most likely at their peak strength. This is one important reason, but another more interesting reason is because this is an age when young men are most reckless and most willing to make nonsensical life threatening decisions. Young people do not fear death in the same way as older people do, and for this reason they are most willing to go off and fight.