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1. What happens when you "send guys to war"?

2. What were Curt Lemon and Rat Kiley doing when Curt stepped on the land mine?

3. How does O'Brien describe Lemon's death on pg. 70?

4. Why is it difficult "to separate what happened from what seemed to happen"?

5. What was the mission of the patrol that went up to the mountains?

6. What did they hear while they were there?

7. What did they end up doing about it?

8. On pg. 76, what does Mitchell Sanders say is the moral of his story?

9. What does Sanders later admit about his story?

10. What happened to the VC water buffalo?

11. What did Rat do afterwards?

12. What does "proximity to death" bring with it?

13. On pg. 82, what is the "only certainty"?

14. What wakes Tim O'Brien up at night 20 years later?

15. What did Tim think Curt Lemon must've thought killed him?

16. What does the nice middle-aged woman think Tim should do?

17. What does he want to say to her about the baby buffalo, and everything else in the story?

18. According to O'Brien, what is a true war story NEVER about?

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1. How did Curt Lemon's visit to the dentist affect him?

"The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong"

1. What was Rat's reputation among the men of Alpha Company, when it came to telling stories?

2. What does Rat insist about his story in this chapter?

3. What was the military discipline like at the outpost?

4. Who were the Greenies and what were they like?

5. Who did Mark Fossie bring to the outpost?

6. What was their plan together, since elementary school?

7. What does Rat say are the similarities between Mary Ann and all of them?.

8. What did Mary Anne begin to do when casualties came in?

9. Where had Mary Anne been the first time she stayed out all night?

10. How did she change as a result of her conversation with Fossie the next morning?

11. How did she respond to Fossie's arrangements to send her home?

12. When and under what circumstances did Rat see her next?

13. On pg. 106, what is Mitchell Sanders' attitude about Rat's way of telling a story?

14. What does Rat have to say about the soldiers attitude toward women?

15. What did the Rat, Fossie, and Eddie find when they entered the Greenies hootch?

16. What kind of jewelry was Mary Anne wearing?

17. What does Mary Anne tell Fossie about his presence in Vietnam?

18. What does Mary Anne say she wants to wants to do with Vietnam?

19. At the bottom of pg. 113, what does Rat say about "the girls back home"?

20. What is the metaphor that Rat uses to explain Mary Anne's experience with Vietnam?

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1. What did Dobbins do with his pantyhose when his girlfriend dumped him?

"Church"

1. What did the monks at the temple help Henry Dobbins do?

2. How does Kiowa feel about the soldiers camping at the temple?

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1. What is paragraph one of the story about?

2. What did the young man hope some day to become?

3. What is Kiowa doing throughout the story?

4. What is Tim doing?

5. What did the boy fear about his performance in battle?

6. How did the other boys at school treat him?

7. What does Tim's examination of the boy's body tell us about Tim's feelings about his death?

8. What was the boy carrying?

9. What does Kiowa keep insisting Tim do?

10. How does Tim respond?

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Class Homepage | Study Questions Part 3

Thanks Amy Reynolds