Exploration 6: Reading Response to The Things They Carried so far - Brian Klunder

1. One of the stories that meant the most to me so far had to have been one of the most recent ones we have read about in the chapter "Ghost Soldiers", in which Tim decides to have some revenge on his new medic Bobby Jorgenson for him incorrectly performing his duties in saving Tim's life on the active battlefield. I find this story to mean something to me because of how he acts at the beginning of the prank and at the end of the prank while being in the company of Azar, mainly because it's the same way I would have acted towards something vengeful like this ghost prank. Usually whenever I try to get back at anyone, I would always scheme to "even the odds", but every time I would come close to doing the act I just end up going back against my own words and back off completely. An example of this that can be found in this book of when Tim, in the midst of committing to the act at night, tries to back off after setting up the entire event and letting Azar finish up what he begun.

2. The character that I connect with the best so far has to be the author because I find him to be more relate-able than the other main characters in this novel, especially with his mentality. The recognizable qualities that Tim holds: knowledgeable, remorseful, thoughtful, honest, curious, quiet, and judgmental.

3. Something that is worth pointing out is the description that Tim gives to the jungles of Vietnam gives to the viewer when describing the night-time of the war, giving indirect metaphors of the movement and odd characters seen at night by soldiers and the dialogue speaking of the ghost "Charlie Cong" and what he could do to soldiers at any moment during the night. This passage provides a lot of information to give the reader a sense of what the land is to the U.S. soldiers that are stationed there and what challenges they potentially face on the battlefield related to their mental state.

4. One of the passages that really struck me as being something that I see to have relation to my current life is the passage at the bottom of page 188, in which he talks about how he felt betrayed by being excluded by his squad. "I felt something shift inside me. It was anger, partly, but it was also a sense of pure and total loss: I didn't fit anymore.  They were soldiers, I wasn't. In a few days they'd saddle up and head back into the bush, and Id stand up on the helipad to watch them march away, and then after they were gone I'd spend the day loading resupply choppers until it was time to catch a movie or play card or drink myself to sleep. A funny thing, but I felt betrayed." This impacted me since there have been multiple occasions where I have been excluded by my group of friends for not being up-to-date with them, or for doing different tasks that created a wall between me and them, resulting in me trying to get back into the clique that requires some deal of effort because of different stances that we take.