by killJOY » Thu 06 Mar 2008, 09:00:37
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Time O'Brien', 'W')hat sticks to memory, often, are those odd little fragments that have no beginning and no end....
...Ted Lavender adopting an orphan puppy--feeding it from a plastic spoon and carrying it in a rucksack until the day Azar strapped it to a Claymore antipersonnel mine and squeezed the firing device.
The average age in our platoon, I'd guess, was nineteen or twenty, and as a consequence things often took on a curiously playful atmosphere, like a sporting event at some exotic reform school. The competition could be lethal, yet there was a childlike exuberance to it all, lots of pranks and horseplay. Like when Azar blew away Ted Lavender's puppy.
"What's everyone so upset about?" Azar said. "I'm mean, Christ, I'm just a boy."
Tim O'Brien,
The Things They Carried.