Norman Oglesby's Representation

In the book, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, readers get an idea of the War on Terror from a young group of soldiers, who despite all preconceptions, are not necessarily pro-war. The book, set around the time of 2003, takes place in a Republican-dominant area of Texas during a period when the nation was a lot more pleased with the war efforts than it is now. In this book, the Bravos, the soldier group on a short tour in the United States between deployments, meets a lot of high-powered individuals, the most prominent being Norman Oglesby, fictional owner of the Dallas Cowboys. In context of the book, I believe Norman is supposed to represent the Bush administration, if not George Bush himself, during the time of war.

After reading the book, it is clear that it carries a subtle but strong anti-war sentiment, or even an anti-Bush sentiment. Bush is portrayed as creating a mess and then sending others to clean it up, the others being the Bravos. When Dime, one of the soldiers is speaking to a room of Norman’s peers, one of them asks what it was like to meet the president (something the troop had done earlier in their tour).

“Oh the president,” Dime enthuses, “what a totally charming guy!” Everyone knows he is bluffing, though, as the following passage states, “The rest of the Bravos strain for studiously blank expressions as Dime’s loathing for the Yale brat—his words—is well-known within the platoon (134).”

Bush is a member of the elite, or upper-class, and the Bravos are all members of the lower-class fighting for the war he created. In a similar way to Bush, Norman is also a member of elite society, and he relishes in his position as such. When the Bravos are trying to get a movie deal, Norman is the man they need to back them up and put money into the project. Norman is a business man, though, and wants to put as little money in as possible for as big a personal return as he can. When Dime is trying to negotiate with Norman, Billy thinks, “…if it was up to him, he would fold right now. It’s too strong, the dark mojo of these rich, powerful men operating in the comfort of their home turf, and Norm above all with his kindly blue eyes, his fatherly patience, the paralytic force field of his mesmerizing narcissism (276).”

The way in which Billy describes Norm is metaphorically how Bush is portrayed in the novel; a rich old man who sits with his team at home while others do his dirty work abroad. Though I do not think that author, Ben Fountain, wrote this novel to turn readers against the Bush administration, I do think he intentionally made Norman, and unlikeable, (not) ironically Texan man, Bush’s representation. This novel is meant to open readers’ eyes to “the war at home,” but not the one that was preached in the early 2000s. A key way in which the novel does this is with this representation of Bush.