Personal Response to Soldier’s Home

Reading Soldier’s Home initially made me feel a deep sense of empathy towards Krebs. From the beginning, I felt bad for him because he clearly did not feel like his life had direction after returning from the war. While reading, I kept thinking about how isolating it must have been for him to come home and no longer fit in with his own community. The fact that people would not listen to his trauma or his stories made me feel sorry for him, because it seemed like he had no one to talk to or to share his feelings or experiences with.  (l.14 ). – (l.18 ). When he begins lying and exaggerating his war stories just to get people to pay attention, only to feel sick for lying, I felt even worse for him (l.). At this point in the story, I honestly thought he felt guilty about what he had done during the war, and that he was almost being haunted by his actions, which is why he was also unable to pray or felt he did not belong in Heaven. (l.198). – (l.155). I imagined that he felt ashamed by what he had seen or done, and he felt ashamed speaking to God. I thought this because I have heard of many soldiers returning home with a lot of guilt and fear because of what they had to do during the war, to the point where they even worry about what will happen to them in the afterlife, so therefore I assumed Krebs was experiencing something similar. Overall, all of this combined made me feel a strong sense of sympathy toward him. However, this perspective changed after our English class discussion, where I realized that I had missed an important part of the story, and Krebs did not actually feel guilty for his actions in the war and instead admitted that he enjoyed the war and that it came naturally to him. (l.21). This completely changed how I saw him. After realizing this, I started remembering all the moments that originally made me feel sympathy for him, and I realized there was, in fact, two interpretations to his actions and words, one where he felt guilty for what he did, and another where he felt guilty because he did, in fact not feel remorse for the war. This realization really shocked me, and I found myself feeling really disturbed and even disgusted, because I cannot imagine finding comfort or enjoyment in something as horrible as war.
Another example that changed my view was the line where Krebs falls back into the “classic pose of the frightened soldier”(l.31). when meeting another veteran at first, I assumed it meant that he finally felt safe enough to be vulnerable, like a normal traumatized soldier would after the war. But after our discussion, I realized he was imitating how a soldier would “Normally”  feel, which made me feel really unsettled. Right now, I honestly do not know how to feel about him. Part of me strongly dislikes him because he admits to enjoying something so violent and upsetting, and that makes me see him very differently, and makes me really question his morals. However, another part of me has a small amount of empathy, because he does show he feels disgusted about the fact that he feels this way, which does show me that he understands it’s wrong and abnormal. However, since he does ultimately feel this way , I find it difficult to feel fully sympathetic toward his character. I hope that maybe we can read another part of his story, if there is one, so I can fully understand his reasoning. Overall, I thought it was a well-written story, and it was interesting to get another story about a soldier’s perspective that’s not very common or only concentrated on their trauma or experience.