How to Tell A True War Story O'Brien

If you want to know how to tell a true war story, you can’t. At least according to Tim O’Brien.  He told stories that he remembers vividly almost as if the happened the day before. Something that caught my eye was how he remembered and explained little things such as the “half step” Lemon took right before he was sucked into the booby trap. He tells us reasons how you can tell it is a true war story, but in a couple paragraphs later, explains that you cannot tell a true war story.  He recites little things, like Rat calling Lemons sister who never wrote back a cooze. Rat does not call her “bitch” or “woman”. I believe O’Brien focuses on this because he has so many awful and graphic stories that he remembers and wants to focus on all the positives that came out of very bad situations. He finds little things in like Rat not calling the woman nasty names even though he was traumatized by the death of his best friend and the fact that the sister seemed to ignore it. It is obvious that O’Brien himself is traumatized by the events that happened because he shows symptoms of PTSD. Such as when he wakes up in the middle of the night “hearing” Dave Jenson sing Lemon Tree as they pulled Lemons body off the booby trap. Or how the whole brigade seemed to be paralyzed from doing or saying anything as Rat shoots the baby buffalo. O’Brien himself even says that war stories are not believable and he even questions if they ever happened at all. In his writing it is almost like he is telling these stories for his own benefit as if to comfort him. When he tells stories and people come up to him and tell him that they were impressed or liked his story, he almost gets frustrated because the person does not get the story. They do not understand what it means to O’Brien and what he went through.