Anthropomorphism (personification)

"Imagination was a killer" (page 11). The most frightening part of war is the unknown. War is unpredictable when accounting for the amount of wounded, dead, or missing people. There is also no answer for an easy end to a war and there is no answer to the outcome of the war. The unknown allows for people to make up there own answers to all of the questions. In the book, this quote refers to the part where soldiers go on tunnel duty and the soldiers wonder what happens to the people down in the tunnel. They begin to scare themselves with all of the possible outcomes. The soldiers could die, or they could be trapped alive. The unknown is scary for most people. For most people, the reason for the Vietnam war was unknown and the outcome of the war was also a mystery.