Chapter 4 Summary

Chapter 4 begins with Tim stating that he is about to tell a story he has never told anyone, because he has always felt it would cause too much embarrassment. This is something he has lived with for over twenty years. It is a hard story to tell, he believes, because all of us like to think that if a situation arises in which bravery is called for, we would react with courage. He had always felt that courage was like a resource that could be saved up for the right occasion, and that by storing it away, when the time came, he would use it to be a brave hero.

In 1968, a month after graduating from college, he was drafted. He was not especially politically active, but he had done a little in the way of protest, and he did have a sense...