While reading Guibert’s memoir I did not have the same sense of connection and emotion that I felt while reading Maus, but rather felt a greater distanced from the story and storyteller. In Maus I felt that the transitions between the past and present provided the characters with a personality to connect with and create a rounded identity. In reading Alan Cope’s story I feel the terse language necessary for comic books does not lend to the narrative, but for me stood out as choppy and detached. The first time I did gain a greater sense of Cope and an overall cohesion of the novel did not occur until page 252. In describing the name of the largest sequoia, General Sherman, as “too bad for the tree” (252). In a story based upon Cope’s life surrounding the war I found page 252-253 the most telling of Cope’s commentary on the war and his life that I overlooked or maybe was lost in the earlier pages. I feel that these pages bring to light that this is a memoir of a part of Cope’s life, but not of his entire life. The war did not define Cope’s life, but was a major component of the relationships he built, career paths, etc. And in looking at page 253 where the tree is represented as a large white expanse, contrasting with the dark tree trunks we see on the adjacent page suggests that maybe this may be an illuminating moment for Cope as well as the reader? This confrontation with a physical representation of war (the name of the tree) and life (the conversation held with the tree shows this connection) seems to prompt a clarity Cope had been searching for; a clarity to return to Europe, the place of his combat experience, but in a new role not defined by the war. Does this return show that the war actually show that the war is not a part of his life, but rather has defined his life?