Response to "How to Tell a True War Story"

     I have no first hand war stories to relate. I was too young, just barely, to go to Viet Nam. Desert Storm happened after I left the Navy in 1986. I have, however, had the rare privilege of being in the company of close friends who have trusted me with painful, true tales from combat. This brings me to say, I have every respect for Mr. Tim O’Brien. Most people know that war is horrible. Because of the relationships I have had with veterans, I believe he writes these stories, not so much to tell us what we already know, but more as a way of softening the horrors he saw over there. It’s a little like blood-letting to cure a disease. Lines like, “ … how the sun seemed to gather around him and pick him up and lift him high into a tree … ” (O’Brien 80), are evidence of how we can soften a traumatic scene by changing it into something beautiful.

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     The letter Rat Kiley wrote to his friend’s sister, I’m certain, was worlds different from the those she had received from her brother. It must have been very confusing to her and, quite possibly, put her in the frame of mind that this fellow was not all there. The letter was for Rat. A way of relieving the pain in an attempt to make sense of his Lemon’s death.

     War brings out the best and the worst in men. War is not fair, neither is life. O’Brien tells us, “ … war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love” (76). War and combat and all the things that go on during a battle are things which cannot be understood by someone who has not been there. Even those who have, come away with this confusion about what was real and what was imagined. The woman in the audience O’Brien speaks about, well-meaning and all, needs to understand that men who have lived these stories they tell are incapable of “putting it all behind.” We can only hope for healing.

                                                        Works Cited

O’Brien, Tim. “How to Tell a True War Story.” The Things They Carried. Boston:

     Haughton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. Print.

True? War Stories...