War, Healing, and Peace Theme Analysis

Though Ned Begay is unwaveringly committed to the U.S. effort in World War II from beginning to end, he never glorifies war. He describes the terrors of the battlefield, the loss of friends, and most of all, the traumatic aftereffects of war in soldiers’ minds, which he believes can only be healed through an intentional effort to restore spiritual balance. As one example of the imbalance wrought by war, Ned describes his struggles to come to terms with the humanity of the Japanese enemy, who remain all but invisible to him except through their victims. By portraying Ned as a committed yet compassionate and spiritually sensitive warrior, Bruchac argues that war is never a good thing in itself, and that everyone—soldiers, victims, and civilians—must strive to heal from the wounds of war and ultimately to achieve peace.

War itself, though necessary, throws the world—and the individual soldier—out of balance. Ned explains that during reprieves from combat, some Marines, including some Navajos, begin to drink heavily in order to forget what they experienced during combat. Sometimes this drinking continues long after the war, as dark memories persist in the veterans’ minds: “Never think that war is a good thing, grandchildren. Though it may be necessary at times to defend our people, war is a sickness that must be cured. War is a time out of balance. When it is truly over, we must work to restore peace and sacred harmony once again.” Ned means that war must not be glorified—just because it is sometimes necessary doesn’t mean it is good. When war is over, people must actively seek balance again in order to heal.

Periodically recalled to Hawaii for additional training, Ned gets a preview of the trauma that will linger after the war: “At times […] I felt as if the things around me were not real. It was too quiet and beautiful. There were no guns being fired, no shells exploding around me, no muddy foxholes […] I should have been happy, but instead it made me feel ill at ease.” At such times, he says, he relives violent memories and worries about future battles. In other words, Ned sees that even outwardly beautiful, peaceful things are thrown out of balance by the trauma of war. War steals happiness and invades quiet times with painful memories and fearful anticipations.

Ned’s cultural memories also give him insight into the cruel aftermath of war: Some soldiers “had kept going forward until not just their bodies were worn out but their spirits. They hadn’t been physically wounded, but now were unable to do anything. Some just stayed in bed and cried. […] Others just stared off into space. […] Navajos understood it well. Our ancestors saw what war does to human beings. When we must fight other humans, injure and kill them, we also injure a part of ourselves.” Again, while sometimes unavoidable, war has consequences even for those who fight honorably. From his people’s history of battle with oppressors, Ned recognizes that war causes emotional ailments as well as physical ones, which can only be healed after an intentional process of restoring the spirit.

Such spiritual “injury” manifests itself in imbalanced relationships with other human beings, making it difficult to remember enemies’ humanity. From the beginning, Ned struggles to humanize his enemies. Because so much of the Japanese defense is waged from hidden foxholes and caves, Ned experiences the eeriness of seldom laying eyes on a physical enemy: “As I drifted off to a fitful, exhausted sleep […] I thought about what was the strangest thing of all that first day of combat. All that fighting had happened without seeing even one Japanese soldier.” In this sense, the Japanese people remain a mystery to Ned and his fellow soldiers for much of the war.

However, Ned quickly learns to distinguish between the Japanese military and civilians, who have often been placed in a cruel position. He is grieved when a friend describes the situation on Saipan: "The Japanese women and children ran from the Marines in terror. They’d been told that Americans were devils who would kill and torture them. […] They climbed to the tops of cliffs and threw their children off before hurling themselves onto the rocks below. Hundreds jumped from the cliffs […] before our shocked Marines could reach them. There were tears in Wilfred's eyes as he remembered it.” Ned shares his friend’s compassion, recognizing that the Japanese people themselves cannot all be viewed as the enemy.

After describing how the Japanese mistreated the Chamorros (natives of Guam who were U.S. citizens and refused to cooperate with the occupiers), Ned reflects that “for a long time even after the war, it was hard for me to have any good thoughts about the Japanese. What troubled me the most was the way they treated the native people of the islands they conquered. […] Never forget, grandchildren, that we must always see all other people as human beings, worthy of respect. We must never forget, as the Japanese forgot, that all life is holy.” As happens elsewhere in the story, Ned’s own experiences of being treated in dehumanizing ways by a majority culture make him especially compassionate to other mistreated minorities. He recognizes that such mistreatment stems from a failure to recognize others’ humanity. At the same time, he acknowledges that his anger at such mistreatment inclines him to forget the humanity of the Japanese, too—even their lives must be regarded as “holy.”

Ned himself finds healing by immersing himself in his community after the war. He fulfills his dream of becoming a teacher and he works for educational reform on the Navajo reservation. Finally, telling this story of being a code talker (a marine who used a top-secret Navajo code to send messages during battle) is itself an expression of restoring balance to the world—the code talkers’ mission had remained classified for decades, but now Ned can speak freely of the realities of war, thereby encouraging others to pursue peace.