Entry #4 World War II

My first reaction to these stories was sadness and horror.  What these men had to go through is awful and no one should have to go through it.  However, it is also amazing how much honor and bravery the men had.  I was very surprised though at the lack of emotion when Rasmus was talking about the deaths in his platoon.  Maybe he felt like he had to hold in his emotions after what he had seen overseas.  Maybe he couldn't let himself show any more emotion because he had left it all in Europe.  I was very surprised when he said, "Our guys were getting killed, too.  Irony again, the first one killed was our platoon sergeant."  This shows his lack of emotion about death.  I have read the book "The Things They Carried" which is about the Vietnam war.  In this book, the author uses a lot of emotin when he describes one of the men getting killed.  Rasmus' story was very different and his tone almost the opposite of the tone of Tim O'Brian, the author of "The Things They Carried."  Rasmus was very direct and literal, while O'Brian used symbolism and emotion to tell the story.  I enjoyed reading the different tone of Rasmus from what I was used to with O'Brian.