1. why does Harold Kreb's embellish his war stories when he returns to the US?

You need to match the book/story with the question. When Krebs returned to the United States everyone had already told their war stories and his were not as exciting. So he felt the need to embellish his stories. ' Krebs found that to be listened to at all he had to lie, and after he had done this twice he, too, had a reaction against the war and against talking about it."