It's hard to describe war and the weight that such an experience carries. It's hard to articulate emotions, especially negative emotions that drag your whole being down. It's particularly difficult to articulate the emotions of a soldier who killed other human beings in a war that didnot have justified rationale. However, with a long and emotion-filled monologue, Emily Mann has successfully described the emotion and logic behind a soldier's decision to kill in battle.
The first sentence is definite, "I don't think you understand." It's simple and honest, an expectation laced with disappointment that foreshadows a convoluted story, and the soldier's story is exactly just that, convoluted with no real resolution. It also puts the soldier in a hopelessly defensive stance: trying to explain something inexplicable, trying to rationalize something behind which there is no logic, almost trying to defend an action that is indefensible. The repetition of "could have" immediately puts the soldier in the role of an unreliable narrator, as it reveals that he has done something he should not have, and while he accepts his responsibility and desires to go back and redo it, he still defends his action as a result of an order. This is further developed later in the third-to-last stanza: "I had a whole set of values./I had 'em and I didn't./I don't know." The capitalized "YOU'RE UNDER ORDERS" and "you've got to DO it" stand out in the whole poetic monologue, and they enhance his passivity and subjectivity.
The split between two parts carries a strong weight, especially with the first line of the second part being "I... I killed three children..." While the first part is just Mark remeniscing the general feeling of the battlefield ("It was crazy," "It was beautiful...") and giving an account of younger soldiers ("I'd drift in space wondering what he'd do under fire.") the second part goes deep into his personal experience. While the first part contains mere description that is less connected to him personally, the second part digs deep into his emotion.
The continuous uses of short lines and sentences throughout Mark's account read like fragmented sobs to me. Most of the time they also bring out the sense that he's trying so hard to search for words that would somehow articulate his state of being but failing to come up with any. His explanation of how there is rationalization for everything is particularly heartbreaking, as he is so unsure of the rationale that he's been given that it clearly foreshadows the contrast and confusion within him. It hits a climax when he confesses "but I know it's the same damn thing/ as lining Jews up." Rationalization after rationalization still appears after this confession, just like a stream-of-consciousness thinking on his part, it's as if we can see the wheels turning and halting in his head as he tries and fails to rationalize what he has done. The fact that every of his rationalizations is broken within the same stanza and ends with him blaming himself and pushing himself deeper into guilt is equally pitiful and outrageous. The brutal honesty of the soldier paints him as conflicted and confused and there is a tinge of hopelessness. Overall, I think it makes him utterly humane.
People can argue with Mark or agree with him, but through Mann's words, Mark's account definitely raises conflicting emotion in all of us. And even though he has not come to any real resolution as to how to rid himself of his guilt or defend what he has done, Mark's characterization has put up a mirror that reflects an unjust war: nothing is resolute, nothing is defensible, nothing is explicable.
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