1. The story that has meant the most to me so far is probably, "The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong". Because, it has shown the kind of deep desire that any person carries. The way Mary Anne gets attracted to the idea of war is the same way that my grandpa was. He fought in WW2 and loved it. When I was a kid, his war stories weren't morose, they were exciting. He would talk about the war like it was in his glory days. He talked about the gore, the killing, almost like a little kid talking about Call of Duty. In the book, "...She shows up with a suitcase and one of those plastic cosmetic bags. Comes right out to the boonies. I swear to God man, she's got on Culottes. White culottes and this sexy pink sweater." (pg. 86) That was the image of innocence. She was just a high school sweetheart in the beginning. My grandpa, at first, was afraid of war. He said that the first time he was given a gun, he was so anxious he vomited. But then he said, "I got over it."
2. I would be more related to Jimmy Cross. He has a trouble handling the responsibility bestowed upon him, being the leader of the team. Whenever I am given a big responsibility, I would never be sure about my ability to handle that responsibility. Also, the way the guilt that he felt towards Ted Lavender's death when he gets distracted by the letters from Martha being that his own need towards an escape from the stressful environment of the war would be the same way that I'd react. If I was in an extremely stressful environment such as that, I'd be in constant search of a distraction to get my mind away from that situation.
3. The one convention that's really getting my attention would be his way of describing the imagery in the book. Every time O'Brien describes the setting at specific moments in time, I always can vividly experience that moment from feeling the dirt, smelling the air, hearing all the sounds of war, seeing all the things through O'Brien's eyes.
4. "But the guys don't say zip. They just look at him for a while, sort of funny like, sort of amazed, and the whole war is right there in that stare. It says everything you can't ever say. It says, man, you got wax in your ears. It says, poor bastard, you'll never know - wrong frequency - you don't even want to hear this. Then they salute the fucker and walk away because certain stories you don't ever tell." (pg. 72) That passage really stood out to me because, as it said in the passage, one stare, that is emitted by the soldiers can say everything you'd experience in the war.
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