Two years ago I was asked to write a personal response to a short story called Sniper. I wish for you to read a portion of my response to that story then compare it to the short story Gregory.
Dear mom and dad, Today I killed a fellow soldier. Little did I know about the men in the other uniforms? The fact that they are someone's husband, brother, or son or friend, did not occur to me as I was fired from a rooftop while defending my countrymen from the surrounding enemy. I was engulfed in terror as I battled with the soldiers on the street and protected myself from shots coming from another rooftop. I was only aware of my own need to survive. In my need to know the face of my enemy I turned over the soldier who attempted to kill me. I will forever remember the face of my brother, as he lay dead at my feet In relating these two stories there are only a few similarities.
Five Stories (short story collection)
The first short story from the reader participatio...
Illustration of the Sherlock Holmes short story Th...In both stories the two men were looking out for their own welfare and not the welfare of others. The difference in this is, in Gregory, he man knew who His victim was, it was a close personal friend. However in sniper the man did not know his enemy was his brother.
War does terrible things to people it makes you forget who you really are and the importance of friendship and love. It's so important that we must never forget the people who really matter to us. The mans choice to protect his own well being over Gregory's was not entirely wrong. But in the end he lost a good friend who really didn't need to die. I wonder what would have happened if the man chose not do what he was told and protected his friend. Would he have been the one to die in the end or would it have been overlooked? Why must people feel the need to hate and kill so often? So many innocent people die every day because there is so much hatred and anger to destroy the whole universe.
The man blamed his friend Gregory for his failures, accusing him of being "a miserable little creature, such a puny little thing, such a nobody." So he wouldn't be faced with the fact that he was killing a man He truthfully admired.
Head quarters didn't even care in the end if he was dead or not to them he was just another victim. Gregory was a nobody to the other soldiers but to the man he was someone.