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Wild Bob is an American infantry colonel who is a prisoner of war along with Billy. His entire regiment has been killed, leaving him the sole survivor. As Wild Bob succumbs to illness, he no longer seems to remember or understand that all of his men are dead, and he believes that Billy is a member of his regiment. He frequently invites Billy to visit him in Cody, Wyoming after the war, although it’s obvious that he will not survive to see Wyoming again. Wild Bob’s delusions exemplify how impossible it is to hold onto one’s sanity when one is constantly subjected to mass death and horror.
Billy continues to repeat Wild Bob’s invitation to visit him for decades after the war, showing how the trauma Billy sustained in WWII is always present in his life. Although Bob has been dead for decades, Billy still repeats this invitation, showing how addled his mind is. If we accept that Billy really is a time traveler, his confusion surrounding Wild Bob is explained by his constant jumping through time, which makes it difficult for him to remember whether someone is alive in any particular moment. However, through a more realistic lens, in which Billy’s time traveling is simply a coping mechanism through which he attempts to numb the traumas of WWII, his confusion surrounding Wild Bob suggests that he is always reliving his time in the war. Although Billy lives well into his middle age, the war haunts him and he is never fully able to transition to the present.
