The chapter "Speaking of Courage" is about Norman Bowkers feelings and thoughts after the war. It is the 4th of July and he is driving around a lake and he remembers the time when Kiowa died. When I first read the chapter I was confused on why the title of the chapter was called "Speaking of Courage" instead of "Speaking of Cowardice". Norman Bowker did a very cowardly thing, he didn't save Kiowa. But later I realized that it must take a great deal of courage to talk about an event like that. Norman states that he had nobody to talk to about his experience. That is why it took a lot of courage to talk about that. Although the characters display both courage and cowardice.
In the beginning of the novel the characters have to carry the fear of being ashamed or dishonored. This fear shows cowardice in the minds of the soldiers. Also in the chapter, "On the Rainy River", Tim O'Brien shows us cowardice by going to the war. He didn't do the courageous thing of following his heart, he was scared of being shunned so he was a coward and decided to go to the war. Also, Lee Strunk was a coward because he begged to not be killed after his leg got blown off.
I believe that in war soldiers have more courage than cowardice. The sheer fact that they are putting their lives at risk is very courageous. They are pretty much scared of being killed 24/7. War puts people in positions that they never thought they would be in and positions in which no human being deserves to be in. There is a lot of guilt involved in war. Sometimes there is nothing you can do, you can't always be the hero. The soldiers are really hard on themselves and they feel responsible efor things that they had no control over, like Kiowa's death.
