Quoted:Quoted:
" I always liked to hear about the old-timers. Never missed a chance to do so. You can’t help but compare yourself against the old-timers. Can’t help but wonder how they’d have operated these times ".
This statement summed-up the entire book.
I couldn't believe that the movie left out all of Sheriff Bell's WWII encounter.
Yeah...I'm just not sure how they'd have gotten it into the movie without making it seem like some Rambo-esqe PTSD thing. It really wasn't PTSD, it was a moment of fear during combat that defined Bell's life. He seem to spend his entire life as a sheriff trying to atone for that moment. But, at the same time, always scared he'd fold again if things got bad.
That is why he had to go into the hotel room. It was his one moment. It didn't matter that Anton wasn't in there. What mattered was that he pulled his 1911 and went in there. And once he had faced that moment, he knew that he was done with being a lawman. Things were "getting" bad in his mind and he was afraid he'd have to do it again. He'd done it, but he didn't want to have to face the possibility he couldn't do (or wouldn't) do it the next time. Maybe he even knew he wouldn't. He'd done it once and now, even though he could never go back to Europe, he could go out knowing that he had faced that type of fear once and not backed down.