reader response, day 5

World War Z by Max Brooks, 7/1/14, pages 95-113

       Today I read about Todd Wainio, a soldier that fought in the first major anti zombie conflict and was routed, thoroughly. they were defeated because of poor choices from the leader ship. The government had the troops there mostly for show, to look impressive to all the reporters filming them. Another example of poor decisions is them setting up a good choke point but then having their troops dig in. they also brought many spray and pray guns in other words, machine guns. they also had brought inadequate amounts of the ammunition that works best and far too much of the useless stuff, like tanks with shells rather than scatter shot. a key part of the plan was bombs which are made useless due to the thick gooeyness of the zombies bodily fluids, meaning the shock wave from the bomb did little to no internal damage to the brain of the zombies. They also sent heavily armored troops to fight over 1 million undead. due to their idiocy the troops were basically fodder for zombies. then when all their best failed to dent the numbers they tried to drop thermobaric bombs on their own people. thermobaric bombs are bombs that create a roiling cloud of fire that is accompanied by immense crushing pressure that grows, expands, crushes and explodes everything in it's way. however it's the aftermath that is the truly terrifying part. it creates a vacuum that sucks the air from your lungs and can even cause your lungs to be ripped right out your mouth and they dropped them on their own men.

        The mood or tone of this section is one of hopelessness. The author creates this mood by putting the characters up against over whelming odds that they can't beat. He could've given the soldiers sniper rifles and put them up on buildings with traps and air support, but instead he gave them inadequate equipment and impressive weapons that did little to no actual damage. This made their difficult task of protecting the refugees and taking out a  massive number of zombies, impossible. Then he heaped on some more horror by having those in command try to kill them all. I found it to be very effective.