Answer:
a. This march is his first war experience.
Explanation:
In Tim O'Brien's short story "Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy?", the protagonist Private First Class Paul Berlin is part of the soldiers during the Vietnam War. The short story mainly dwells on the one experience of how he finds the death of his fellow soldier Billy funny and even though it made for a good war-time joke.
While it is true that he did not know Billy personally, that cannot be an unique quality of Paul for there is no certainty whether other soldiers all knew him. But one thing unique about Paul's situation among the other soldiers is that this is his first war experience. This can be seen in his conversation with Toby, who asked him if he was "<em>the new guy</em>". The narrator states "<em>he did not want to admit it, being new to the war</em>" which shows that Paul was indeed new to the war experience.
by giving a specific example of a tragedy caused by indifference
It seems to me that the two forces struggling when the narrator bites back her tongue are Meimei vs. self. This meaning, the narrator is battling herself, her Meimei self. Her family called her that way because she was the youngest sister. It seems to me that is a battle against her childhood, her attempt to be or, at least, act as a grown up. Her mother is telling she to restrain her childish whim.
