Summer of '69

“Tiger said goodbye to David and his three sisters in the driveway. Kate has instructed the girls not to cry. ‘We don’t want him to think he’s never coming back,’ she said…And yet it’s this exact fear that’s holding Kate hostage: That Tiger will die on foreign soil.”

Hilderbrand sets up Kate’s fear that Tiger will die on foreign soil, a fear so strong it holds her “hostage.” This further indicates how Kate thinks emotions should be dealt with as she orders her “not to cry,” or to sublimate their feelings as she tries to sublimate her own.

“When I was teaching kids to drive in Brookline, I knew the war was going on, I watched it on TV with you and Mom and Dad, I heard the body counts, but that didn’t feel real. Now I’m here, and it’s too real. Every day requires fortitude, which wasn’t a word I knew the definition of until I got here.”

In his first letter from the war, Tiger clarifies the difference between imagining an event and experiencing it. Life on the battlefield requires he must call up courage each day. This is one of many statements Tiger makes that shows how he’d been privileged, unlike others. It also speaks to Tiger’s strength of mind, a fact David later attests to (137).

“[…] when she walked out of Woolworths with the mascara tucked safely in the pocket of her orange windbreaker, she felt a rush of adrenaline that she thought must be similar to getting high. She felt good! She felt powerful!”

This quote exemplifies the emotional satisfaction Jessie receives from shoplifting. Her statement that the theft makes her feel powerful suggests that she feels powerless from the combination of tumultuous world events, Tiger’s deployment, and the growing pains of turning 13. The shoplifting, which gives her the feeling of “getting high” has the potential to become addictive.