O'Brien or Vonnegut

After reading Slaughterhouse-five and How to tell a true war story, it is very prevalent that both authors have a pretty heavy case of PTSD. Both authors have multiple flash backs (or reoccurring repetitions of the same story) to points in time of their respective war that was fought and each time they flash back to a moment in the war they both change small detail almost like they are trying to have closure for those events in their lives. You can tell that both men are suffering hard from their PTSD and struggle through their daily lives trying to not let PTSD take over their lives completely.  While both of the authors tell their one story they stop to come back and comment on what they just wrote and would just contradict themselves.  I personally feel that each memory of the stories that they try to recall have a trigger of some sort whether it is a sound like a gun shot or even a word, there is something that triggers the brain to flash back at a specific moment and then also that the authors are only able to recall specific moments of the event. I personally know that a traumatic event has a massive affect upon a person whether it is from war or even just a slap on the wrist, continual exposure to the traumatic event without having a closure or a debriefing of some sort will leave a lot of open ended questions to the person that is being affected by the event. With all this being said in the end and through out the readings both authors definitely make you question whether the stories are true or what parts of the stories are true. The saddening truth is that even though they wrote the stories down, both authors still need help in healing their wounds, wounds of PTSD.