It may seem that the young teen is being overly dramatic about the severity of losing his keys, but he compares it to being "harmful and irreversible" as the result of Westmoreland's "decision to dig a Khe Sanh” (169). An event which, according to Michael Walker, was actually “a crucible of consciousness in the making” (Walker). From the narrator making these connections we understand better that this young teenager is actually scared contrary to his feelings of being a bad boy. We see that exaggerating certain parts of the writing may be necessary to prevent the story from overdoing imagery such as the allusion to the "toad emerging from the loaf of bread at Virgin Springs" (171). This reference was probably made to save the narrator from having to go into even more explicit detail about the possibilities that this could have happened