Enchantment and the Criminal Justice System by Deborah Rocheleau

In chapter five of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Billy draws an interesting comparison between an act of vandalism he committed—the crime for which he was forced into the military as punishment—and his “deed on the banks of the Al-Ansakar Canal” (Fountain 91), one of the most violent acts he performs as a soldier. Early on, we learn that Billy was forced to join the military as punishment for the destruction of his girlfriend’s ex-fiancé’s car. In an under-the-table deal, Billy is offered the military as an alternative to prison, the usual means for reforming violent individuals into upstanding citizens.  

Interestingly, in the military Billy must perform acts much more violent than the crime for which he is punished, most prominently the extremely violent “deed on the banks of the Al-Ansakar Canal.” However, because of the enchanted way the military and the public view violence performed by soldiers, Billy is applauded for his violent acts as a soldier as much as he is condemned for his violence as a citizen. It seems that the military, rather than reforming his violent tendencies, as prison would, instead only trains them toward more acceptable violence—that is, politically-approved violence.

In chapter five, these two acts come together for Billy in a way which undermines the “reform” he would have experienced in prison. Rather than seeing the vandalism as delinquent and the Al-Asakar Canal deed as heroic, he begins to consider both “the bravest thing he ever did” (91). In enchanting the violence of war, it seems, the military has trained Billy to reconceptualize his vandalism as transformative, a “digression” from the “futility and pointlessness” (91) that was his ordinary, pre-vandalism life. It seems that the “enchantment” of violence can work both ways, enchanting violence on a political scale while at the same time enchanting the personal violence of one citizen against another. In this way, Billy’s time in the military does not reform his violent tendencies toward more politically acceptable expressions of violence, so much as teach him—at least in this chapter—to view all violence as enchanted, regardless of its political acceptability.