How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
The Colonel didn't see the point of it. "You can live your life or you can watch it," he'd say every time one of our expeditions got slowed down because TJ wanted to take a picture of something, a statue, a duck waddling down the middle of the road, a little kid who'd just dropped his ice-cream cone on his lap. (5.4)
It's no surprise that the Colonel has no love for photography; he'd rather be out there acting and doing instead of stopping to take a photo of it. We take his point: Sometimes we're so focused on snapping the right angle that we miss out on living our lives while they are taking place.
Quote #5
"Are you kidding? Who do you think is out there picking up the wounded? If you want to know the truth, I'd rather have gone Field Artillery. But I thought Mom would swallow the Medical Corps easier." (5.19)
TJ lets his little sister in on a secret about the war and what type of life he can expect over in Vietnam. It's so different from anything Jamie has ever experienced that it's hard for her to wrap her head around the idea. So hard, in fact, that she didn't even think about the bodies TJ will be carrying around.
Quote #6
The worst thing was that she was an eleven-year-old girl whose brain was still on the first-grade level. She could read and dress herself and ride her fancy bicycle in wobbly circles around her front yard, but she couldn't think straight at all. It was like her emotions got in the way of her thoughts. (6.2)
Cindy's brain doesn't work the same way as other kids' her age, so it's a very different life for her. We can tell that Cindy understands things about the war and the moon but doesn't quite piece everything together. Her existence is much different than Jamie's.