What does O'Brien mean when he writes, “they were too frightened to be cowards?" Why does he use this contradictory statement to describe feelings of the soldiers?

O'Brien uses the theme of carrying in his text resulting in a comprehensive criticism of this idea. In his text, he shows the different types of luggage's men carried. However, O'Brien tries to show their humanity in the way they are careful in carrying the things they have from their loved ones, like letters

the narrator is a first person, participant one, who describes in the simple past tense important and difficult events in his earlier life. he also provides temporal markers as the month (january) and the time (12: 30 pm). finally the account of his experience is very detailed, to the extent that a participant narrator would talk the same way about his experiences. a good example of such detail is the mention of the “bovril ration” which historically was a native american food adopted by european explorers in arctic and antarctic regions due to its high level of calories.

the very first one i did this and passed the test with 5 wrong