How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"I just hated school so much, hated everything about it. I'm starting to think that was what was f***ed up, a lot more than me? Keeping us locked up all day, treating us like children, making us learn a lot of s*** about nothing. I think it made me sort of crazy." (Bully.61)
Lots of kids don't like school for various reasons. Billy sounds like he resented school for its very existence. He felt like it was a complete waste of time, a barbaric torture system to keep kids down.
Quote #5
Now there was a depressing thought, although Billy could see how it might come to that, assuming best-case scenario he made it home with all his limbs and faculties intact. He'd go to work for Whalers hauling oil-field pipe and blowout protectors all over the wind-scrappled barrens of Central Texas, busting his ass for slightly more than minimum wage and s***ty benefits. (Bully.119)
Talk about being dissatisfied with your lot in life, right? But seriously…that sounds miserable. As Mike Rowe says, "It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it." Though, that's hardly comforting when you're confronting your own future prospects in such a place.
Quote #6
"I don't think anybody knows what we're doing over there. I mean, it's weird. It's like the Iraqis really hate us, you know? Just right there in our own AO, we're building a couple of schools, we're trying to get their sewer system up and running, we bring in tankers of drinking water every day and do a meal program for the kids, and all they wanna do is kill us. Our mission is to help and enhance, right? And these people are living in s***, literal s***, their government did nothing for them all these years, but we're the enemy, right? So what it ends up coming down to is survival, I guess. You just pull in, you aren't thinking about accomplishing anything, you just wanna get through the day with all your guys alive. So then you start to wonder why we're even over there." (Bully.192)
This is exactly the argument that a lot of people were using at the time to question our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. If our guys are getting shot at for trying to help, why stay there? Billy and Bravo lived this situation in a very, very real way.