MItch Albom: Eddie's War Experiences

This piece will surprise people, because it contains a lot of interesting details. This particular piece goes into detail about Eddie's personal war experiences. This was the longest work that we read, so I chose to focus on one aspect of the book. This essay tells how Eddie's war experience affected his whole life. The emotions that he had while at war had a great impact on his life also.

____________________________________________________________

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom is about a man named Eddie, who dies and meets five people in heaven. Eddie meets people in heaven and learns how they played a part in each other’s lives. One of the people Eddie meets in heaven is his captain. Eddie and his captain fight in war together. During the times Eddie is at war, he learns a lot. Eddie has some good and some bad experiences. Being in war affects Eddie’s life physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Eddie’s war experience affects him physically, because he loses his leg and will have to use a false one. Eddie’s captain shoots Eddie in the leg to keep him from running into a burning building. The text reads: “Eddie shook his head. ‘No-no-wait-wait, I think there’s someone in th_.’ He stepped past a burning puddle of oil, and his clothes caught fire from behind. ‘I’LL HELP YOU! COME OUT1 I WON’T SHOO-.’ A piercing pain ripped through Eddie’s leg” (Albom 83-84). If the captain did not shoot Eddie in the leg, he would have gotten burned.

Eddie’s affects from his war experiences are not all negative. Eddie learns to stay low and move in the mud by pulling himself along by his forearms. Eddie also learns to fire a rifle. He learns to ride atop a tank as well. Eddie begins to whistle through his teeth, and sleep on rocky earth. He realizes that scabies are itchy little mites that burrow into the skin. He also begins to spit a great distance and smoke. Eddie even learns to march and cross a rope bridge while carrying all at once: an overcoat, a radio, carbine, a gas mask, a tripod for march guns, a backpack, and several bandoliers on his shoulder.

Eddie’s war experience also has a mental effect on him. One of the major changes that Eddie has to adapt to is to shave with cold water in his helmet. War teaches him the concept of survival. Eddie cannot get over the thought that someone is in the burning building, and this leads to nightmares. Eddie thinks that war is his call to manhood. In his eyes, fighting for his country makes him more of a man.

Another way the war has a mental effect on Eddie is that he learns to be careful when shooting from a foxhole. He also learns not to think before shooting, just shoot. At one point Mickey tells Eddie, “‘Listen to me, Lad.’ “War is no game. If there is a shot to be made, you make it, you hear? No guilt, no hesitation. You want to come home, again, you just fire you do not think (59).”’

Eddie recognizes the sound of the nervous cheer of a soldier’s first survival combat. He learns to pray quickly. Eddie even learns a few words in a few foreign languages.

The war also has an emotional effect on Eddie. Edie figures out where to keep the letters to his family and the love of his life Marguerite if he is found dead. He learns that he and the other soldiers must go into war and come out of war together, dead or alive. War changes Eddie in many ways. "War crawls inside Eddie, in his leg and in his soul. He learns a lot as a soldier. He came home a different man (Albom 85)."

Eddie also learns to kill people without thinking about who he is killing first. He finds out what it is like to become a prisoner. He sees that men’s bones are really white when they burst through the skin. Eddie learns the sinking depression of a soldier’s second combat. He becomes depressed, and all he wants to do is sleep.

The war has an effect on Eddie physically, mentally, and emotionally. Eddie has some good and some bad experiences from being at war. The war changes Eddie’s life in many different ways. Eddie goes in war one person, but comes home from war a different man. In heaven, Eddie learns that the Captain shooting him was not meant to hurt him but to help him. He learns that if the Captain had let him run into the burning building, he would have died before he did. Eddie forgives the Captain and makes peace with him after such a long time.



Works Cited

Albom, Mitch. The Five People You Meet in Heaven. New York: New York, 2003.