Comrades: Yet another word we use without understanding the etymological significance. Tim has comrades; Henry has comrades. Check out this definition and etymology at Dictionary.com and compare that with Henry’s relationship to his comrades in the first fifteen chapters and O’Brien’s interrelationship of characters (especially in “Friends and Enemies”). Pay particular attention to the way the characters are revealed.

A Comrade is a person who shares one’s interests or activities.  A comrade is a friend or companion and a comrade is often a fellow member of a group, especially a fellow member of the Communist Party.  In the two chapters “Friends” and “Enemies”, Jensen and Strunk start off as enemies but then change into friends.  I don’t know if I would consider them best-est friends because of their previous fight but I do consider them comrades.  They both have the same interests and activities and they are both members in the US army.  However they don’t keep their pact.  When Strunk got his leg blown off, Jensen didn’t keep his pact to kill him.  Both men did not want to stick to the pact.  I don’t think either could face the killing of Strunk.