Exploration 3 by Ben Gudavalli

        My active reading for today was really fun and interesting. Although the book had a lot of interesting parts, I was very interested when Tim O' Brian says that war stories have this surrealism in them which made them seem unreal. True war stories are hard to believe because the situations they are in affect the soldiers' mental conditions which make normal people who have never experienced war in their lives skeptical about whether or not these type of situations actually happened. These soldiers are in constant action which makes it hard for them to remember the specific things during the war.

        The story that meant the most to me is on the Rainy River. I liked the interesting conflict between the accepting the draft or escaping to Canada.The draft meant that you couldn't do anything apart from accepting to go to war. If I was in this situation, I would have to accept it even if I die because I would let my family down. Tim O' Brian specifically shares his part of the story which made me sympathize with his situation. The quote, " The problem, though, was that a draft board did not let you choose your war.",(Brian,42) made me realize that there was no out of this. Tim would have joined  the military voluntarily someday if he had the choice to do it. Tim later meets Elroy who gives him a place to live in and money with no questions asked. Finally, he admits that he is a coward for not going to Canada and becoming a soldier which I had similar situations where I had to submit to defeat when being forced to do something.

       The character I find most interesting is Lieutenant Cross because he has to carry the weight of his shoulders and the mirages of his Martha. It was really sad of seeing him have the illusion of love with her. I felt like he was the character that had suffered the most mentally because of having so much responsibility with his soldiers and yet his love for Martha had prevented him from keeping them safe. Even after the war, he was not able to get what he wanted.