1.	It makes us wonder if the author is the narrator. Especially toward the end of the book, the author shows his intense connection to the events in the story. When he discusses Nicholas, the soldier who almost got a Silver Star in the story, the author takes care to mention that it was not Nicholas who failed Kiowa, but himself. At the same time, he deliberately obfuscates the issue, and deliberately is unclear as to whether he is Tim in the other stories and Nicholas in the story of the shit field, or Nicholas is entirely fictional.

2.	The things each soldier carried helped to differentiate them as individuals. They all dress the same, eat the same food and sleep in the same fields, and the things they choose to carry are all they can use to differentiate themselves from the generic soldier and maintain their own sense of identity. They choose to carry things that remind them of who they were before they were soldiers. Kiowa carries the hatchet and bible to remind him of his heritage, while Henry carried his girlfriend’s stockings to remind him of the world he had left at home.

3.	The author believes that going to war was a cowardly act because he only went to war and joined the military because he lacked the courage to run away. If the author had been braver, then he would have actually gone and left. This idea comes up repeatedly in the book, as the author returns to examine the idea that serving in combat required great courage. The author believes that courage is not the willingness to put oneself in physical danger, but the willingness to stand up to authority.

4. 	In this chapter, O’Brien says, “A true wary story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behaviour, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done.” I think what O’Brien is trying to say is that war never full of valor, virtue or moral. When people tell war stories they like to emphasize on the fact that the main character was always full of courage and always put others before him. O’Brien stresses the fact that is an inaccurate portrayal of soldiers. In my opinion, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a true war story. Sometimes, it’s too hard to truthfully recount experiences without twisting them and often times people who have never been in war would not be able to handle/like a true war story.

5.	Mary Anne Bell is transformed by her experiences in Vietnam. Her transformation represents the change that people undergo when they have new experiences and are exposed to new ideas. Her entire ideology changes, as well as her outlook on life. The way that Rat tells the story, this is a change that not only could happen to anyone, but that actually does. This leaves the listeners with a nagging fear that this transformation will happen to them. The soldiers know that there is a good chance they will not return at all, and Rat works this fear by telling them that if they make it back, they will not be the same.

6. 	The narrator defines courage as something that doesn’t necessarily have to equate to being ‘brave’ in the usual sense. Sometimes the bravest thing to do was just exist, and stay on earth, and face the terrors, and feel the pain. I think courage is quite subjective. It’s different for everybody, the situation you’re in, your pain threshold and the situations you’ve been in before.

7.	The narrator is telling us that the account he is about to give is not a totally accurate representation of the events that actually happened. On the other hand, his “story truth” is an account of his experiences with the events, which are possibly more relevant than the events themselves. Even though the events he told may not have happened, his reactions and his views of them reveal a great deal about his character, which is what his story is really about. The story is true because it’s not a story about what happened, it's a story about him.

8.	In this story, the author is scaring the victim of his “prank”. Because of the heightened tensions in their wartime environment, the victim could not dismiss the fears as easily, leading to a vicious cycle of fear inducing visions inducing more fear. The author’s statement “when you’re afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before” refers to the idea that true fear will force you to confront the things in the dark that we usually ignore. The logical response is suppressed by the fear, and we begin to imagine the rest of the monster we know is waiting.

9. 	Even though it’s not at the same scale or gravity, we all have our own little wars we’re waging inside. We’ve all done things we’re not proud of and we have to live with that. I don’t think war has changed that much over the years except for new technology. Then again, who am I to say. There’s a lot of politics involved in war, and sometimes the soldiers are the ones that receive the brunt of it. All they do is carry out orders and hope for the best.