Ambush
by tim o'brien (excerpt)

when she was nine, my daughter kathleen asked if i had ever killed anyone. she knew about the war; she knew i'd been a soldier. "you keep writing war stories," she said, "so i guess you must've killed somebody." it was a difficult moment, but i did what seemed right, which was to say, "of course not," and then to take her onto my lap and hold her for a while. someday, i hope, she'll ask again. but here i want to pretend she's a grown-up. i want to tell her exactly what happened, or what i remember happening, and then i want to say to her that as a little girl she was absolutely right. this is why i keep writing war stories.

symptoms
by john steinbeck (excerpt)

during the years between the last war and this one, i was always puzzled by the reticence of ex-soldiers about their experiences in battle. if they had been reticent men it would have been different, but some of them were talkers and some were even boasters. they would discuss their experiences right up to the time of battle and then suddenly they wouldn't talk anymore. this was considered heroic in them. it was thought that they had seen or done was so horrible that they didn't want to bring it back to haunt them or their listeners. but many of these men had no such consideration in any other field.

only recently have i found what seems to be a reasonable explanation, and the answer is simple. they did not and do not remember--and the worse the battle was, the less they remember.

read the excerpts, paying special attention to the underlined sections. how does the theme differ in the two excerpts?
a.
while "ambush" deals with a soldier struggling to come to terms with his experiences, "symptoms" deals with soldiers who have become so apathetic that they no longer try to understand their experiences.
b.
"ambush" talks of a soldier who can’t share his feelings with his daughter but hopes to someday, while "symptoms" deals with soldiers who have lost all memories of the worst experiences of war.
c.
"ambush" deals with a soldier who is afraid of forgetting the war and who deals with his fear by writing down the stories, while "symptoms" deals with soldiers who deliberately suppress all their painful memories of the war experience.
d.
in "ambush," the narrator works out his negative emotions about the war by confiding in his loved ones; in "symptoms," the soldiers are unable to work out their negative emotions because they have completely forgotten their experiences.