It is hardly easy for a father from the Marine Corps to adjust at home after four years at war. Doesn't it seem that fathers in such situations are quite isolated from their family and loved ones? Joseph D. Bowen is one of these fathers from David Mclean's short story, "Marine Corps Issue". Devoting himself to the Marine Corps, Joseph D. Bowen is a symbolically isolated father, which the author demonstrates through the separation of his family and himself.
After a three-year imprisonment, Joseph was caused to forget how to be an active family member. His isolation from his deep feelings is shown, " Despite my father's years of service, our house was a devoid of memorabilia." (Mclean, 344) Even though Bowen must have had many good memories, he lacks to show it throughout his home, even precious family pictures. Something happened while he was away to war, allowing his true feelings and love be diminished and the separation of his family seems even more distant than when he was away. He may not have looked or talked any different as his oldest son explains, " I don't remember him being different or anything. Maybe quieter. I don't know." (Mclean 347) but on the inside he had changed. His inner most feelings had rotten out of his head and what he may have truly cared for was taken away as being a POW. Without those feelings toward his family, he tended to stay to himself and keep alone, not expressing any interest but rather strict policy and discipline. After being trained to kill and then tortured for three years, many things pass minds that have been through it, many ideas lost forever.
Isolation from people gives an uneasy feeling to those people to be around and effects the relationship between those people and each other. As with Joseph, when he catches his some rummaging around his personal items, "I have never seen so much confusion on a man's face. He was startling angry, I could see, his body stiff, his nostrils flared, his breathing heavy, his jaw muscles rolling beneath his skin.
