Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

Ben Fountain

I’ve read a number of books about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past few years, and this is one of the best.  Krakauer’s Where Men Win Glory, Hastings’ The Operators, and Finkel’s Thank You For Your Service (all nonfiction) are all insightful and tremendous.  I recommend Where Men Win Glory to my students all the time, and I may have to write a blog post about the heart-breaking Thank You For Your Service.  But I do love fiction, and sometimes a fictionalized story can crystalize themes and conflicts better than a nonfiction tale can.  I think that’s the case with Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.  This novel, a National Book Award finalist, made me think about how we use our military, the effects of war, and most of all, America’s relationship with its military. 

A short summary:  Billy Lynn, member of Bravo Company, is involved along with the rest of his Company in an intense fire-fight in Iraq.  The horror of the scene – and the bravery of the soldiers – is all captured by a TV crew, and because of this Bravo becomes a celebrated fighting unit.  Seizing on the publicity, the Army sends the men back to the United States for a victory lap of sorts.  Their last stop is at Cowboy Stadium on Thanksgiving.  The entire action of the novel, except for some flashbacks, takes place on this oversized spectacle of a Thanksgiving Day.

Some thoughts:  It’s a funny, brutal, heart-wrenching book.  It caused me to reflect on what we as a country are doing to the very, very, young men that we send to war.  (The youth of these soldiers – praised by their Sergeant as “the most murderous bunch of psychopaths you’ll ever see” – is evident on every page and makes their actions, and people’s reaction to them, even more poignant).  Despite their youth, though, the soldiers of Bravo are deferred to time and again because they’ve seen action, they’ve been involved in a famous fire-fight:  “Here in the chicken-hawk nation of blowhards and bluffers,” Fountain writes, “Bravo always has the ace of bloods up its sleeve.”

And so these soldiers, these 19 and 20 year old kids, have been to war, have seen death and caused death, and have become famous for it.  As a reward, they’re used as props in a halftime show and toyed with by the Hollywood and business-types who are looking to profit, somehow, anyhow, from the soldier’s fleeting celebrity.  Amazingly, the hero company has to go back to war in a few short days, a fact that surprises everyone who hears it.  At one point Billy and another soldier named Mango are getting high with one of the waiters and they tell him about the Company’s return to the battlefield.  The waiter is scandalized:

“The fuck! The fuck you gotta go back, after all you fuckin’ done, fuckin’ heroes?  Where’s the fuckin’ right in that? You guys done kicked your share a ass, whyn’t they let you just coast on out?”

Mango laughs. “The Army don’t work that way. They need bodies.”

I find the waiter’s speech to be hilarious (I love a good profanity-laced tirade) but it’s his outrage that I relate to the most.  How much more can we ask of them?  How can we use them even further?  Have we wrung every last bit of value from these kids?

Billy struggles with returning to war – especially after forming a close connection with a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader! – and ultimately has a decision to make about his future both in and out of the military. 

I loved following Billy as he wrestles with his future, and I feel like I could write about the characters and scenes and themes in this book for about ten thousand words.  I won’t, though.  At least for now.  There are other books to read!