Ambush

by Anonymous

The story "Ambush" tells readers a story about a soldier named Tim O'Brien, in the Vietnam War whose daughter later wants to know if he had killed anyone. He lies to her; then he tells us he had killed an enemy soldier and then wished he had acted differently.

In the story, Tim O'Brien was puzzled when another soldier shook him awake for the final watch. He was lost and not sure about directions, groping for his helmet and weapon. After a while, a young Vietnamese man came out of the fog, carried his weapon in one hand, muzzle down, moving without any hurry up the center of the trail. He saw a short, slender young man of about twenty. He was afraid of the soldier or afraid of something and as he passed him, he threw a grenade that explode at his feet and killed him.

"Ambush" reminded me of the time when my country was attacked by the Taliban and the war started. As I remember, I used to walk through the mountains with my mother; I could hear the bombs, which were exploding all around. I was puzzled and didn?t know which direction I am going, as I saw the other people screaming and running toward the streets.

In "Ambush", the American soldier felt really lost and wasn't sure about what he has done to that young man. Sometimes he was forgiving himself and sometimes not. In the ordinary hours, when he was reading a newspaper or just sitting alone in a room, he will look up and seeing him in his imagination that the young man coming out of the morning fog.