The Distant Stars: Youth At War

Youth at War

The reader immediately recognizes the youthful idealism Dana Sachs describes in her analysis of Le Minh Khue's short story "The Distant Stars." Khue's short story is an account of three girls who reminisce about childhood joys in their beloved Hanoi as they go about the dangerous business of filling craters and detonating bombs along a trail.

The teenage girls, Nho, Thao, and the narrator Dinh, are filled with such idealistic and patriotic zeal that the constant threat of death that they face in the searing heat of broad daylight does not faze them. In her analysis Sachs notes how the "young women approach their duty with good humor and a love that is 'selfless, passionate, and carefree, only found in the hearts of soldiers' " (Sachs 1493). This is further supported when Dinh asks, "Where else could you experience taut nerves, an erratic heartbeat and the knowledge that all around lay unexploded bombs. Maybe they'd explode now or maybe in another moment. But definitely they would explode" (Khue 1107).

It is their youthful exuberance and passionate ideology that enables the three teenagers to look death in the eye and deny that it could happen to them. Dinh narrates that "I did think of death. But it was a vague death, not a concrete one" (Khue 1113). Even after a serious injury, Dinh refuses to admit their mortality. With no concern for her own safety "Nho had just bathed in the stream and was walking back up. That section of the stream often had time-delayed bombs detonate in it" (Khue 112). As Sachs analysis states "Without any distance between the narrator and her implied audience, the story becomes imbued with the idealism of its characters" (Sachs 1493).

It is the very same youthful exuberance and ideology that allows the girls to view the revolution with the Americans as a noble struggle. This is not to say that the girls are not home sick. They miss their families and their adolescence. They miss Hanoi. "We treasured its tranquility as a memory. This was a place where we were growing up, but we were always thinking of Hanoi" (Khue 1110). The girls are growing up and the war proves to them they can survive on their own. The teenagers' newfound independence provokes their willingness to make huge sacrifices and continue their dangerous duties for as long as necessary. When Nho asks "when will it be over?" Thao replies "When will it be over?" in a tone as if to say that the revolution may never be over. Dinh however is filled with youthful hope. She is positive that once the revolution is won, circumstances will insure them that their lives will be greatly improved and they will be permitted to pursue their wishes and desires. "But these things were for later. After the war. When the trail we were protecting here was evenly paved with asphalt. All three of us understood this. We understood and believed it with a fierce faith" (Khue, 1108).

The fervent idealism that runs throughout the story is further established as the reader learns that "not only are the young women models of self-sacrifice and revolutionary zeal, but all the men are as well" (Sachs 1496). Every character in Khue's short story is heroic. Soldiers, who drive by the girls' cave dwelling toss them toothpaste, perfume scented writing paper, and candy. The fact that the soldiers treat the girls so kindly and with such respect establishes that they recognize the huge sacrifices that the young women are making are for their shared ideals.

The romantic theme that something pure and good exists beyond the grueling struggles of war resonates throughout Khue's story. The wide-eyed idealism of the girls is again confirmed when injured and sick with exhaustion, Dinh tells herself that "the happiest moments were coming" and forces herself to stand up and go outside and join the soldiers and her friends, Nho and Thao in the middle of the night (Khue 1118).

Overwhelmed with youthful fervor, Dinh relates that "I had struck a pose and that was all. How could I help it? There