Reading Response: Amber McLaughlin

The Ghost Soliders has meant the most to me so far because I think it was a story that anyone could relate to. Jorgenson almost got Tim killed and he wanted to get revenge on him for that. That applies to a lot of things in our society today. If someone does you wrong, a person's first instinct is to get them back. I also find it cool how at the end of the story they work things out and can be civil. I find it sad that the other soldiers don't think that he is of one them since he no longer is on the field. It's sad that just because he got moved he could no longer be a part of the family he had spent most of the war with.  I think I connect with Tim the best because in the beginning of the book he was very scared and wanted to run away from the problem and that's where I find myself a lot of times. As a society we think that running away is the easiest solutions, and in our minds it is but after we sit down and really think about it we find out that there are better solutions. He over comes this fear and still goes to war and that shows how brave he is. He is also the writer of the book so you can really get a feel for how how he is feeling and how the war impacted him. Something I have taken from my active reading is all the sense details. One passage that hit me really hard was "I remember the rage in my stomach. Later it burned down to a smoldering self - pity, then to numbness. At dinner that night my father asked what my plans are were. "Nothing," I said. "Wait". You could really tell how scared he was to go to war and you could tell in his writing that he was terrified what was going to happen to him. He was scared of what his family would think of him, and everyone else in the town. He didn't want people to think badly of him but he was also too scared to go to war. He had a college degree and had his life set for him and that letter ruined his life. You can really feel his worry and how upset he was about that letter. It really impacted me because I love how I can read and just relate to how he is feeling and really feel him putting his all in his writing.