Explication Essay # 1 – “Facing It” Images of war and death can wear on the psyche of anyone and can affect those exposed in vastly different ways. In Yosef Komunyakaa’s poem “Facing It,” the soldier depicted in the poem faces a struggle with images of death and his experiences in combat during the Vietnam War. He grapples with something that we understand today as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD; “Facing It” describes the mind altering events and the subsequent symptoms through the mind of the soldier in the poem. Moreover, as many veterans must do after they return from hell, the soldier faces coping with the memory of others around him that returned home in a flag draped box. The soldier depicted in the poem takes a journey of self-actualization to understand his PTSD, and as he stares at the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, he seeks to understand the reality of his condition by going out on patrol one more time. His final patrol provides a sense of closure and an understanding of his condition over a decade after his experiences in Vietnam. His “black face fades, hiding inside the black granite” (Komunyakaa 1538) as he becomes just one of the many faces of war depicted on the wall. He fights back tears as he is face to face with the wall, and his unresolved memories of pain trigger a flashback of “the boobie trap’s white flash” (Komunyakaa 1539). The resulting white flash kills another soldier named Andrew Johnson in the explosion, and he recounts the day, like it was yesterday as so many with PTSD do, forcing him to relive memories he will never forget, but wishes he could; furthermore, the poem seems to imply that the exploding flash of light injures the soldier himself, causing him to lose consciousness. He wakes in a hospital being cared for by nurses whose “names shimmer” (Komunyakaa 1539) on a blouse. The poem offers a glimpse into his mind and