This chapter explores the idea of “traditional heroism”. Tim O’Brien presents starts the chapter off by saying that he is telling a story that he has “never told anyone” because it would cause “embarrassment” (39) He tells about himself being drafted into the war. At first he sticks around and gets a low-paying job at a slaughterhouse (which he really doesn’t like). The details he gives us about this job show us how he can be perceived as “weak” in a sense. According to him he was “too good for this war” because he was “too smart and compassionate”. He says, “I hated Boy Scouts. I hated camping out. I hated dirt and tents and mosquitoes. The sight of blood made me queasy and I couldn’t tolerate authority, and I didn’t know a rifle from a slingshot.” (41) In these statements, O’Brien clearly shows that this character does not fit the traditional criteria of a rough, tough “hero”. He also shows that this character is not a “hero” because he attempts to flee to Canada to escape his troubles. The author is playing with our sense of a hero. The character Tim O’Brien fails to be a hero because he didn’t do what he wanted to do, He didn’t flee to Canada. Most people would think that the heroic thing to do would be to return and join the war. The character Tim O’Brien returned and joined the war effort because he wasn’t a hero. He was ashamed and embarrassed to tell this story for so long not because it reveals how much he didn’t want to be a soldier, or how he ran away, or even how he cried. He was embarrass to tell this story because he had the chance to do what was right, and not fight a war he didn’t believe in. He knew very well that, “You can’t fix your mistakes.” (41), and in the following sentence he reveals his guilt for not being a true hero, and fleeing to Canada, “Once people are dead, you can’t make them undead.” (41). Tim O’Brien confesses, “what embarrasses me much more, and always will, is the paralysis that took my heart. A moral freeze: I couldn’t decide, I couldn’t act, I couldn’t comport myself with even a pretense of modest human dignity.” (57) An example of how he did act like a hero in some small way is when he ditched the slaughterhouse job. He “cracked” and he just left his job got his things and drove north with very little thought. He was going on “adrenaline”. That is how heroes act, they just do brave things without much thought, their mind can go on autopilot and they just do what they need to do to get what they have to get done over with. This was heroic because it was a step towards making the right choice (doing what he believed was right) and fleeing to Canada. I think courage and heroism is having the strength (emotional, psychological, or whatever) to stand up for what you believe is right, and not what everyone else believes is right. The heroes I’ve read about in books don’t really build up my definition because most of them are tragic heroes and they screw things up for themselves, (my type of hero doesn’t do that). Characters like Caesar and Oedipus and all of Shakespeare’s tragic heroes are not my idea of a hero.  The only book that I have read that has my definition of a true hero is The Crucible with John Proctor (the main character) speaking out against the witch hunts, and then being put to death for it.