Characters

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The narrator

The narrator is the main character in the short story. According to his outer characterization, his surname is Price, and he has served as a sergeant for seven months in Fallujah in Iraq.

He is also married to a woman named Cheryl and owns an old dog named Vicar, which they got from a rescue home for dogs.

Inner characterization

The narrator’s inner characterization focuses on how being in a combat area has affected him. His traits are often conveyed in contrast – during and after his deployment in Iraq.

From the first pages of the short story, it is suggested that the narrator suffers from PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). On the plane home to the US, the narrator cannot stop thinking about shooting dogs in Iraq, about killing people, or about the death of some of his fellow soldiers: “We shot dogs. Not by accident. We did it on purpose, and we called it Operation Scooby. I’m a dog person, so I thought about that a lot.” (p. 251, ll. 1-3);

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