I thought the story had excellent potential but ended up so so. It does a good job in demonstrating sad horrors of war, but unfortunately in an entirely predictable manner. This predictabilty occurs when the story veers off and attemts to be mysterious! I'm torn about this one. The themes are important and disturbing. Somehow the presentation, for this listener, did not live up to the stories potential. EG asks us about courage and cowardice after the first act. I certainly don't think we can absolutely call our main character a coward, He was panic struck when involved in his first battle and seeing his friend shot. His reaction was to run. He, and his shot friend, recognized there was nothing to do for the injury. If the story is trying to place an indirect "curse" on him for running then I think this rather inapropriate. This was a person of conscientious character and would likely have suffered far more with awareness and guilt vs being brain dead for some 60 plus yr. So what's the point? I wonder. It was an incidental consequence-being shot, I realize this. However, the story is built on the result of being shot. THEREFORE I WONDER IF IT IS TRYING TO REPRESENT SOME FORM OF PUNISHMENT. Again, without this incidental consequence the awareness would have been a bigger self punishment. So, it seems to be done for the sake of telling a story, and therefore limits the stories true potential. Drama-3.