August 1984A GRUNT CAN COPE with monsoons, with leeches, with searing heat, suffocating humidity. The savagery of war does not strip him of his humanity. These things are external. They are not of the self. One does not say, “I am the pain of leeches.” One does not say, “I am a firefight.” “I am Manny’s death.” “I am an atrocity.” It requires a return to a civilized World to complete that dehumanization.
This became Bobby’s theory of the self. As you witness our destruction, you should have our criteria for evaluation. It was maybe six years ago that Bobby said, “In finding one’s self one loses one’s self and no longer needs to define one’s self because one simply is. That is the true self. When one no longer needs to define one’s self in terms of possessions, actions, or relationships, t
