Entry #14

"I was a kid. The thing is, I believed in God and all that, but it wasn't the religious part that interested me. Just being nice to people that's all. Being decent" (page 115).

Here, Henry Dobbins is talking to Kiowa about his interest in becoming a minister. His only reasoning for wanting to follow this career choice is so that he can be nice and decent to people. To me it seems that he is saying that he wants to do the opposite of what he was currently doing. He was out killing and massacring people in Vietnam and all he really wanted to do in life was be nice and decent.

I think that his short break at the church in Vietnam was a good chance for him to do this. He was able to spend time with two monks who had dedicated their lives to doing just that. I think that many people go into professions wanting to help people or just simply be decent to people, but somewhere along the way, possibly in the search for money, fame, or success, we lose our way. Wouldn't our world be a better place if everyone just went out everyday in an attempt to be nice and decent? Lives would be spared and war would be diminished just because we were civil and decent to one another. It might just be me, but this idea doesn't seem so far-fetched. I don't find anything difficult with just being decent.