Night Life: A Euphemism

"For almost two weeks, Sanders said, they lived the night life. That was the phrase everyone used: the night life. A language trick. It made things seem tolerable. How's the Nam treating you? one guy would ask, and some other guy would say, Hey, one big party, just living the night life." - p. 208

It calls to mind Vegas rather than the terrifyingly absoluteness of the dark they actually faced each night.

That feels like juxtaposition to me, but that could also be because I just realized I haven't said a word about juxtapositions, and I just read Christian Powers' latest blog post.

Definitely, though, the "Night Life" is a euphemism for just the reason O'Brien outlines.

Also:

"He'd be sitting there talking with Bowker or Dobbins or somebody, just marking time, and then out of nowhere he'd find himself wondering how much the guy's head weighed, like how heavy it was, and what it would feel like to pick up the head and carry it over to a chopper and dump it in." - p. 211

In marching band, "marking time" is standing at attention while moving the heels up and down to the beat of the music, and marching band gets a lot of its drill nonsense from the army. Consequently, I'm imagining this:

Okay, so not exactly that, but it's what I found when I was searching for marching bands marching time, and I couldn't pass it up because THAT'S WHAT WE'RE PLAYING THIS YEAR, AAAAH!

I think we're doing it better already, but maybe I'm biased =}. Also we dance a whole lot less, for which I am immensely grateful.