Watching Bones

Okay, so we probably all saw it coming that Zach was going to come home early from Iraq, so that’s no big surprise. But isn’t anyone else wondering exactly why they sent him home? I know, they said in the season premier that he was sent home because he “failed to assimilate” and was “detrimental to a military team approach,” but what does that really tell us? Zach is different than the typical soldier. Well, duh, we knew that already.

I’m curious if anyone else has heard if we’re ever going to find out, or if that’s all we’re going to get from the writers. If left to my own imagination, I do have a few thoughts on why they sent him packing…

Zach is obviously a thinker. He looks at things logically, and often, without the emotional attachments or hinderances that most of us would. In a social sense, this would be a big drawback. Put in a military situation, that might be a good way to live, until the fighting stopped and you had a chance to let your emotions catch up with you to register what you’d been through, and who you’d lost.

Zach, on the other hand, with his hyper-intellectual thought process, may never get to the point of grief and emotion that the other soldiers would. Can you imagine just coming out of a battle, realizing you had killed men, your friends had been killed or wounded, maybe you had been wounded yourself, only to have someone analyze you or the situation? Not exactly good for morale.

Or, there’s the possibility that Zach ruffled feathers by arguing the other side. Not saying that he would specifically sympathize, but I could see him breaking down the issues of war into black and white facts and not making a lot of friends in the process.

And, there’s the option that he simply was unable to conform to the strict routine and expectations of the life of a soldier. He seems to be a person who does things that have purpose and make sense. If he could argue that it was impractical or could be done better another way, Zach would be one to do it. Yes, I know, he takes orders from Cam and Bones pretty well, but they also think a lot like he does to begin with. Not to mention they all work for the same goal and purpose. As a recuit overseas in a war-time situation, Zach isn’t a soldier, he’s still a scientist through and through.

Anyway, we may never know the truth behind his early dismissal. It seemed to me that he was a little upset at having been sent home, although he seems to have accepted it and returned to his previous life without much trouble. We’ve only seen two episdoes since he’s come home - and he was a minor character in this past episode. Guess we’ll have to wait and see if there’s more to his story.