YESSS! I love when I happen to stumble across a literary term instead of having to search the novel endlessly! Chapter 3, Spin, includes a giant metaphor comparing the game of checkers to the Vietnam War.
"There was something restful about it, something orderly and reassuring. There were red checkers and black checkers. The playing field was laid out in a strict grid, no tunnels or mountains or jungles. You knew where you stood. You know the score. The pieces were out on the board, the enemy was visible, you could watch the tactics unfolding into larger strategies. There was a winner and a loser. There were rules."
O'Brien lays it all out on the line here for the audience. He makes the differences between checkers and the war vividly clear. Anyone with little knowlegde about war would still understand the metaphor. From what I've learned about the Vietnam War -that there was no clear reason to fight, no clear goal, and no clear path with a country full of jungle ahead - the comparison between these two extremely different "games" is illustrated perfectly.
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I used this as a metaphor too :) But yes, I feel like comparing checkers to the war really let's the audience know that the war is so confusing and stressful that sometimes they just need a game that is the complete opposite!
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