"...there was a strained hospitality in the way both the faculty and students worked to get along with the leatheryrecruiting officers who kept appearing on the campus. There was no latent snobbery in us; we didn't find any in them. It was only that we could feeld a deep and sincere difference between us and them, a difference which everyone struggled with awkward fortitude to bridge. It was as though Athens and Sparta were trying to establish not just a truce but an alliance--although we were not as civilized as Athens and they were not as brave as Sparta." (159)
I liked this quote because of the analogy used in it. There were alot of references to Ancient Greek Mythology and History throughout the entire book; this is an example. Athens and Sparta were two different cities in Ancient Greece, both of which worshipped Athena and Ares respectively, the sibling Gods of war. Both cities were always at each other's throats, and never got along well in the least. A truce would've been unheard of, an alliance, unimaginable. If you apply that idea to Devon and the military, you can see how it fits together. The boys at Devon, for the most part, dreaded joining the army, but they had no choice. Either enlist before you're 18, or get forced into when you are. If you had only one option in your life, you would probably hate that thing too. I really like the author's use of these types of analogies, partly because I understand them.
Why the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks does Brinker care about what happened anyway!? I wanted to punch him for the duration of this chapter...
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