4B
“My experience in high school, on basketball and track teams, and briefly in Boy Scouting had never produced a sense of belonging or many permanent friends. The Perishing Rifles did. For the first time in my life, I was a member of a brotherhood.”
Powell makes a comparison by looking back at his previous experiences, where he was on a team, or part of an organized group. This tells me that he is familiar with being on a team, and enjoys it, otherwise he would not sign up for sports. From these experiences he still did not feel like he belonged and was not able to make friends. I see this as him having a tough time fitting in with others. He also mentions not making any permanent friends, which means he made friends but there was not a deep connection. In the Pershing Rifles he felt the opposite, he felt like he belonged, this is because he saw a larger importance, compared to a sports team. He explains how he became a member of a brotherhood, which is a very deep statement. His peers at the Perishing Rifles became more than just peers and he was able to form a connection to them equal to the bond of brotherhood.
V good!