Chapter 11 and 12

"Church"

Quote 1:

"Dobbins shrugged his shoulders. 'What's serious? I was a kid. The thing is, I believed in God and all that, but it wasn't the religious part that interested me. Just being nice to people, that's all. Being decent.'" (page 121)

Analysis:

In this quote we can see a literary figure being used, which is allusion. When we refer to the fragment, where O'Brien states that Henry Dobbins that he went to church not because "[...] 'the religious part interested me. Just [...] Being decent.'" we can imply that Dobbins find the whole war to be rather an act of cowardice than a heroic act.

This quote explains how Dobbins was rather obliged to go to church every day, rather than going for his own sake, making us allude that he went to the war because he felt obliged to go rather than doing it by doing a heroic act. Also Dobbins would rather join the monks not because "[...] 'the religious part interested me.'" but because he liked "[...] 'being nice to people that's all. Being decent.'" this last part of the quote gives a hint that Dobbins thinks that going to war was dishonest on the behalf of both sides.

"The Man I Killed"

Quote 1:

"Beyond anything else, he was afraid of disgracing himself, and therefore his family and the village." (page 127)

Analysis:

Through this quote what Tim is truing to communicate is that the man he killed has more things in common with him than the people back at home. This can be inferred  when he says "[...] he was afraid of disgracing himself, and therefore his family and the village." which was the author's biggest fear and the same reason why  went to war; for the fear of infamy. 

Quote 2:

"Then he squatted down.

'I'll tell you the straight truth,' he said. 'The guy was dead the second he stepped on the trail. Understand me? We all had him zeroed." (page 129)

Analysis:
In this quote we can see how strong troop bonds are. Such is the comradeship, that Kiowa is willing to take some of the blame for the death of the man Tim killed. Which makes us recall one of the first quote of the book were Tim O'Brien states that all soldiers in a troop "shared the weight of memory."