How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
I was dying to know what the war was like. TJ's letter to my parents hadn't said much at all. […] There was nothing in it that let you taste the true flavor of war, smell the smoke of bombs, hear the helicopters as they took off from the middle of the jungle. (4.29)
Is it just us or does that sound freaky? It's no fun running from gunfire in the middle of the jungle, yet Jamie yearns for all those gory details. To her, war is like a video game or a movie, where there are no real consequences to think about. Too bad that's not how it is in real life.
Quote #5
"Isn't this amazing?" I asked him, feeling excited about the work I'd done. "I mean, it's a picture of somebody who's actually been hit by the enemy. It's the real war." (7.24)
Private Hollister doesn't want to see the pictures TJ sends over. Why? He doesn't want to see dead bodies of soldiers. There's enough of that on TV. While Jamie is ecstatic over the gruesome details of the photos, Hollister really stops and thinks about what they mean. To him, that's some guy who's been injured, not just a cool photo.
Quote #6
Was he trying to scare me? Or was he just trying to tell me that war wasn't anything like the way we'd dreamed it, playing with our little green Army men under the trees? (11.22)
At first Jamie is bummed about getting the photos from TJ—she wants a juicy letter instead—but pretty soon, she wonders why he sends the pictures. We'd like to point out that war isn'tanything like how she imagines it, so it's no wonder the photos scare her. They show what war is really like.