it may not be what you think it is

Tim O’Brien shows the credibility and accuracy of a war story can be off depending on who is telling the story. O’Brien specifically says that a true war story does not encourage virtue, changes morals or actions of men because of previous experiences, or make a person feel up lifted. O’Brien goes on to tell the story of what happened to Lemon and how he died. O’Brien described Lemon’s death as “beautiful”, how the sun hit Lemon’s face in just the right angle so he could see Lemon’s brown and shiny face with his sharp gray eyes and whatnot. You can clearly see that O’Brien is retelling the event but in his eyes, or memory; the event of Lemon dying was beautiful like a painting. You can see with PTSD the person who is telling the story will change what had happened at the event from what really occurred. Such a gruesome death was turned into a beautiful painting that looked like he was ascending to heaven. Some change how they perceive the event so that they can be slightly more at ease of mind.   Also with PTSD, when a service man tells the story, each time you hear the story something changes. For example, O’Brien tells us multiple times how Curt Lemon dies and in each story he changes minor details that if you weren’t paying attention you really wouldn’t notice it. However, you can see with each change the death of Lemon turns into being graceful and not as gruesome as one may think if they were watching some one being blown to pieces. PTSD has many different effects on a person and also has triggers that can cause flashbacks to a particular incident. PTSD is a no joking matter and we need to help our service men and women in their time of coming home.