"In the alley that day I encountered the German soldiers, all right, but my bursts of gunfire killed the soldiers quickly, no exploding head no body cut in two, although one of them did cry Mama as he fell. When I looked down at them... I saw how young they were, boys with apple cheeks, too young to shave. Like me.
In this passage, Francis details his traumatic memory of killing two German soldiers. Certain details of the memory, such as the fact that one of the soldiers cried out for his mother, and the fact that the soldiers were too young to shave emphasize their youth and innocence, and therefore intensify Francis' guilt.
"The Wreck Center became my headquarters in the seventh and eighth grade, a place away from the sidewalks and empty lots of Frenchtown. I had never been a hero in such places, too short and un-coordinated for baseball and too timid to join the gangs that hung around the street corners."
This quote shows how much the Wreck Center influenced the lives of the Frenchtown children, including Francis. Otherwise, the children would have been hanging around the streets not doing anything productive. Larry LeSalle had a positive impact on the community, which makes his later actions all the more shocking.
"Heroes," he scoffs, his voice sharp and bitter, all signs of drunkenness gone. "We weren't heroes. The Strangler and his scrapbook. No heroes in that scrapbook, Francis. Only us, the boys of Frenchtown. Scared and homesick and cramps in the stomach and vomit. Nothing glamorous like the write-ups in the papers or the newsreels. We weren't heroes. We were only there…"
This quote is said by Arthur as he is drunk in an alleyway. Although the veterans do not speak about their experiences sober, here Arthur is opening up as he is intoxicated. He explains how he doesn't feel like a hero, and how images of war heroes in the media are false. This ties into one of the main ideas in the text, which is the nature of heroism.
