Exposition 3: Alex Enders

My active reading is going well. There are many stories or sentences that really have a significance and stand out in the reading. One of these for instance is how “[...] a true war story is never about war. It’s about sunlight. It’s about the special way that dawn spreads on a river when you know you must cross the river and march into the mountains and do the things you are afraid to do.” (O’ Brian 81). This really stood out to me because it shows that the stories aren’t told as history to the war but rather the point they are trying to make about it.

    The story that has meant the most to me so far is “Friends”. I feel that this story means
a lot because it shows how the war brought two guys who hated each other to become

some of the closest guys you’d ever meet. One quote that really shows this is how they
both “[...] covered each other on patrol, shared a foxhole, took turns pulling guard at night.”
(O’Brian 62). Also they ended up making a promise that if one of them were to get messed
up enough they would automatically have to find a way to end it for his friend.

    There are many characters that stand out in the book so far. Rat Kiley stands out to
me in a different way though. The reason for that is that once he saw his best friend get blown
up he went crazy. What makes him so interesting is due to the fact that he was so calm,
collected, playful, and chill before hand. Then, once he had seen his dead friend and had
to clean him off of the tree he went crazy. He went on to completely mutilate an innocent
water buffalo.