Exploration 3 - Justin Evans

I believe the active reading strategy is incredible efficient compared to just reading the story, I believe it improves my comprehension of story and I get a better understanding of the author's purpose. During the reading, I thought it was quite ironic that the dentist who came to lecture about oral hygiene had bad breath, I feel like this connects to the overall theme of do as I say not as I do. I feel like this is a recurring theme and I hope it continues for the rest of the book, it is easy to miss, but once you see it, you realize how many times it has been used.

During my time reading the book, many stories have stood out to me, but the one that stood out the most way "How to tell a true war story" because of the brutal picture that was painted of a water buffalo being abused and tortured like it was nothing. That event is proof that the soldiers have lost so much of their innocent, the fact that he could "He shot randomly, almost casually, quick little spurts" (O'Brien 75) Nobody stopped him from tearing the baby apart and doing the most inhuman things while fighting in a war about stopping a force evil who does inhuman things against our own ideals and values. 

Rat has stood out the most to me, he lost his best friend, he slaughtered a baby buffalo and he writes to the sister of the corpse that he once knew as his brother. The stories told by rat are gruesome and real, he paints a picture that is hard to forget, like that of Mary Anne and the necklace of tongues. Part of his character just sticks with me and he is by far the most interesting to me.