Read the following passage from "Cranes." The northern village at the border of the Thirty-eighth Parallel was snugly settled under the high, bright autumn sky.

One white gourd lay against another on the dirt floor of an empty farmhouse. The occasional village elders first put out their bamboo pipes before passing by, and the children, too, turned aside some distance off. Their faces were ridden with fear.

The village as a whole showed few traces of destruction from the war, but it did not seem like the same village Song-sam had known as a boy.

An important theme in this passage is the

A. strain of war on a country.
B. panic associated with conflict.
C. plight of children caught in battle.
D. relationships between generations.