Speaking of Courage

Oh, poor Bowker! As hard as it is to live through something tramatic, it is a thousand times harder to live after it. To be inundated with both the past you left behind, and the future you could have had is simple awful. I love how he was able to tell time instinctually because it is so realistic for veterans. I know because to this day, 40 years after the war, my Dad can still wake up at an exact time to the minute without an alarm clock. The way he kick himself over his supposed mistakes is so understandable and yet so sad. He has to deal with the reality of how he feels about himself now, whereas he seems almost jealous of his dead friend Max Arnold, who is able to remain an eternal idealist. The chase of his old flame from high school who has since moved on without him shows how he is unable to cope with a world that has moved on. While his neighborhood may look the same as ever, time has predictably changed the people he had perhaps idealized to get through the war. I think his true courage is just coming back and trying to cope.