Exploration Six by Liz

Part One: 
  I believe the strongest thing about this book is how Tim O'Brien is able to tell a story. He makes you feel as though you are really experiencing all the things he is writing about. I really enjoy this aspect of the book. I think the greatest books are the ones that make you feel as though you are hovering over the scenes and experiencing the things first hand. I think one of the best stories he told was Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong. His use of sense detail really impressed me. Most specifically when he was talking about Mary Anne being in the Greenie’s tent with  " Thick and numbing, like an animal's den, a mix of blood and scorched hair and excrement and the sweet-sour odor of moldering flesh - the stink of the kill"  (O’Brien 105). This is one of the best examples of how good he is at describing things. I think one of the draw backs of this book is how O’Brien jumps back and forth through time a lot. Initially when you read it can be difficult to follow through the jumps. This is where I found my active reading came in handy most. Although it can sometimes be tedious to do, my active reading during these parts of the book really helped me to highlight where the jumps are at.

My favorite chapter of the book is the Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong. This is my favorite chapter because it really shows how someone so innocent and bubbly can go from the girl next door to someone who enjoys to kill. It shows how much war can change a person. Although the war didn’t change all the men this drastically, it is something that can never be erased from your mind. “What happened to her, Rat said, happened to all of them. You come over clean and you get dirty and then afterwards it’s never the same) (109). Rat was talking about how Mary Anne had changed into a completely different person.

My favorite character of the book is Kiowa. I like him the best because he is a really good guy. You can tell he genuinely cares about others. In the chapter The Man I Killed, Kiowa really displays his kindness. He knows how much killing the man has upset Tim, so he tried to explain why Tim should let the killing go. “Tim, it’s a war. The guy wasn’t Heidi – he had a weapon, right? It’s a tough thing, for sure, but you got to cut out that staring” (120). Kiowa truly cared about how Tim was feeling and I feel like the war needed more people like Kiowa.

Part Two:
I had talked to my Great Uncle about the war. He was stationed in California. The thing my Uncle remembered most about the war was all the drugs. There were so many drugs being used by so many people it was insane. I asked him about how many there were and he just started rattling off all the different names. He told me many people became addicted and after the war, it was extremely hard to get clean.