The main character is named Songsam. Although he is not in the army, he is a police officer in Korea during the civil war. He finds his friend being arrested. But when he sees this, he is puzzled. So he starts to talk about why he was arrested. But Songsam finds out his friend is innocence. So, he lets him go. I believe the theme of this story is: “Friends stick together even in the bad times.
I do think these stories are different in many ways. But they do have some similarities such as: the plot (civil war) and each had to make hard decisions. But each did have different settings one was held in Korea and the other was in Ireland. In “The Sniper” the main character was related to the opposed enemy, while in “Cranes”, the main character is a childhood friend to the person that was arrested. Finally, the themes are very different in which they had two different conflicts.
Let me ask you again: What would do if you were a sniper/officer and you were in the middle of a civil war? I believe you would have done the same thing that these two people had done in this story. All they knew was that they were doing their job. In that moment of not knowing what to do, you would have only two options? For the “Sniper” you only had a choice of life or death. And for “Cranes” your choices was only to let him go or take him to jail. In those two scenarios, what would you have