Do They Smell Blood? - Katharine Schlegel

Overall the soldiers have encountered adoring fans that rave over how much they support the soldiers. This is conveyed through the apparently patriotic words inserted throughout the novel (examples on page 38 and 45). Nearly halfway through Fountain’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk Bravo squad finds themselves surrounded by elite members of society at the Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving Day game. Like everyone the soldiers have run into, these members are excited to see them, “People are pumped; proximity to Bravo jazzes them full of fizzing good spirits, even these, the high-profile and the well-to-do, they go a little out of their heads around Bravo. Is it because they smell blood?” (112). This passage brings to light the differences between perceptions of the war. By using words such as “jazzed” and “fizzing,” Fountain conveys a bubbly atmosphere with Bravo at its center. Because of their surplus, the high-profilers are not inclined to enlist out of desperation like some of the other characters in the novel. Because of this, they are detached from the war and are able to glorify it. Fountain asserts this enchantment of war, “Is it because they smell blood?” He questions what draws the upper class to the soldiers. Because the upper class is so far away from the atrocities of war, they are able to think of it as if it were a movie, or as something fictionalized. Standing next to the soldiers makes the war real for the aristocrats, but because of the enchanted view, the idea of standing with someone who killed another for the sake of freedom excites them, instead of nauseating them. 

Katharine Schlegel