Exploration 6: Cole Haferman, reading response to TTTC so far.

   The story which has stood out to me most is not actually a single story but a collection of story's titled; How to Tell a True War Story. In this part of the novel Tim shares a number of his own stories from Vietnam as well as a few of the ones he heard from other guys over there. From these stories you can really learn something about the Vietnam war. Part of it is not the actual story itself but how the guy tells it which makes it true, what words he uses and even what he ads in which makes it true. That story is true because you can tell without a doubt that the guy telling it was actually there in the thick of things and that what he experienced was real. You can see it in the way Rat Kelly tells the story of the letter he wrote home to Curt Lemon's sister about her brother who had just been killed. The language he uses does not fit the stereotype soldier Hollywood so often portrays but in fact is something more real than me or you could ever imagine never having been there.
     The character in the book with whom I best connect personally thus far is either Rat Kelly or his best friend Curt Lemon, who are both extremely young during the war and around the same age as me. They are both good soldiers in the platoon but are not like the others who are older and most likely wiser than they are to be playing little games out on a hike. What they both do understand however is how to have fun, they both have a great sense of humor and never take anything too seriously to let it get to them. I think this is how I would have dealt with the war if I were there, to have the same youthfulness as them and have the same lively spirit in all that I did.
     The story of Norman Bowker titled Speaking of Courage really struck me as an expert use of interior monologue in how it impacted the story and spoke volumes to the way Norman felt in the story. In Speaking of Courage Norman is pictured driving in circles around a lake alone for most of the chapter, during this he plays out numerous scenes in his head about how he would talk to different people and what he would say. This is his way of coping with the war and it really shows his loneliness as it is written all through the use of interior monologue. His wanting for someone to talk to is obvious during the whole story but he wants it to be someone he knows and not just anyone when he decides against telling the man on the intercom at the burger joint.
     In the short story titled Style the platoon walks through a hamlet which had recently been burned and observes a young girl dancing outside her burned home with her dead family inside. One of the men mocks the little girl and makes a joke about it while another man defends the little girl and tells him to dance right. "Probably some weird ritual," Azar said, but Henry Dobbins looked back and said no, the girl just liked to dance. The man who defends the girl is Henry Dobbins who we had previously learned in Church that he was never church going but was always interested by the people part and just being nice to everyone. This is a great example of his inner moral character and we see how he defends himself and stands by his morals even when confronted by another man in the platoon.