One of the important themes O'Brien confronts in the novel is the pressure caused by feeling the need to adhere to some cultural or community standard of duty, courage, or patriotism. Commonly referred to as "jingoism," this notion is a frequent theme in Vietnam War related fiction, as most soldiers who fought in Vietnam were born and reared just after World War II. (Soldiers in World War II are thought of as having a much less conflicted sense of their place in the war and their duty to their country, although it was by no means without debate.) Soldiers in Vietnam, therefore, absorbed the mores and values of their parent's generation — that is, the so-called G.I. generation who fought World War II — including duty, patriotism, and service.
Many young men who enlisted or were drafted found, once in Vietnam, that what they saw there and what they did there contradicted the message of service they had absorbed as they grew into their political consciousness during the Kennedy administration and the continued expansion of the Cold War. These feelings of confusion were fueled in large part by social action in the U.S., including peace rallies, the Hippie movement, and resistance music of the 60s and 70s. Prominent examples of this growing pressure are the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969, a gathering of music and people that supported peace and opposed war, and the violent anti-war protests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968.
