Telling a true war story

After the Vietnam War, O’Brien wrote The Things They Carried. He does so to connect his audience to the events that happened during the war. Also, he wants people, who did not experience the effects of the war, understand how the war affects soldiers, their humanity, and what they left behind. In “How to Tell a True War Story” O’Brien’s message is to point out the events of the war, and that war stories are not always true because people have different views of how the war affected them. The whole book consisted of a plethora of metaphors, but without these other rhetorical devices O’Brien would not have been as effective in getting his point across thousands of people who read his book. Therefore, O’Brien used polysyndeton to further explain what war is, antithesis to explain why war stories are true and untrue, and repetition to ensure that his audience understand what he is trying to say.

Many authors have written war stories and about the effects of war on a person. Two of these writers are Tim O'Brian and Ernest Hemingway. O'Brian wrote "How to Tell a True War Story"; and Hemingway wrote a short story called "Soldier's Home". Both of these stories illustrate to the reader just what war can do to an average person and what, during war, made the person change. The stories are alike in many respects due to the fact that both authors served time in the army; O'Brian in the Vietnam War and Hemingway in WWI. However, the stories do have differences due to the slightly different themes and also the different writing techniques of the authors.

     According to the author Tim O’Brien, people tend to readily accept the ‘facts’ presented of what happened during a war. People do not consider the existence of fallacies regarding the actual stories of what happens in wars, few consider that the ‘facts’ of an incident often change through people’s words. The film ‘Saving the Private Ryan’ by Steven Spielberg features both facts and seemingness part of the war story. Since it is so difficult to fully describe a war using human language, Spielberg ended up revising his stories to make sense out of it. Spielberg included parts that did not occur or exclude parts that did occur in order to make their stories seem more credible. According

The short story that will be discussed, evaluated, and analyzed in this paper is a very emotionally and morally challenging short story to read. Michael Meyer, author of the college text The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, states that the author of How to Tell a True War Story, Tim O’Brien, “was drafted into the Vietnam War and received a Purple Heart” (472). His experiences from the Vietnam War have stayed with him, and he writes about them in this short story. The purpose of this literary analysis is to critically analyze this short story by explaining O’Brien’s writing techniques, by discussing his intended message and how it is displayed, by providing my own reaction,

“ How To Tell a True War Story” By O’Brien is a complex story that scrutinizes the complex correlation that exist between war experience and the way stories are being told. Through anecdotes, O’Brien substantiates that a writer contains the ability to form its readers beliefs and viewpoint. Finding a meaning for O’Brien’s story was practically easy because through his anecdotes I was able to openly examine what O’Brien was

This book is a collection of 67 first hand people of the Vietnam war by Americans who were involved. The book begins with an Oss mission to help Ho Chi Minh against the Japanese near the end of World War 2 and ends with the all of a sudden evacuation of Saigon in 1975. The range of people included is immense from grunts in the infantry to gung-ho generals, from anti-war activists visiting North Vietnam to the wives of State Department officials in Saigon. The outcome is a big sweeping sight of the United States ' involvement with Vietnam over thirty years, but at the same time one with the feeling of immediacy that only such personal accounts can offer.

The story by Tim O’Brien shows how the soldiers are themselves and can also be serious. O’Brien also sees how Vietnam changes the soldiers and how they see the world now. There will be people that will ask if it’s true or not true they can asks what happened. There can be different ways to tell a story but they can ask what happen. O’Brien would know which story he really believes. O’Brien will give use by looking at Rat’s point of view, and Sanders point of view of Lemon death and how Rat copes with a letter. Here are three points’ that will go with O’Brien story the history, biography and literary criticism.

War stories are usually an emotional or depressing version of someone’s experience during their time in war. In Tim O’Brien’s short story, “Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy?” and Youtube video, “How to Tell A True War Story” he expresses many of his emotions and his journey after he returned from combat. He explained how scary the war can be, encouraging you to stay away from warfare so you don't have to deal with the guilt he feels, and how depressing and how much his life has changed since returning from his deployment.

Many people, especially old veterans, are very excited of reminiscing their war experiences. They are also keen to pass down their experience by telling to other people. Sometimes they share the stories of each other. Many war stories are told. However, a true war story isn’t only about being a hero in the battlefield or generalizing that war is hell. There are some situations should be shared to get the “moral” of a true war story. In his story, “How to Tell a True War Story,” O’ Brien reveals all of the lies and secrets of other war stories that people have been told. Therefore, the author mentions in his story that “True war stories do not generalize” (page 1) and “War is hell, but that’s not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love” (page 2).

In the chapter entitled “How to Tell a True War Story,” the narrator, Tim O’Brien, lists various ways in which one can tell a “true” war story. He describes, in one instance, that one can “tell a true war story by the way it never seems to end” (72). This definition stood out to me the most as I thought that it related best to ideas O’Brien had brought up in earlier chapters. The notion that war stories appear endless is one that was also touched upon when O’brien explained: “in any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen” (67). Perhaps O’Brien relates the idea that once a story has replaced a memory, the story becomes a part of oneself, and thus never seems to end -- or at least

In his article, “what is an Initiation Story,” Mordecai Marcus gives us the following: in order for any young protagonist to consider themselves entering adulthood they must gain knowledge about themselves or the world around them. There are three different types of initiation that people can go through. The first definition of an initiation story is tentative is that a young protagonist goes through an event and doesn’t change the protagonist at all. The second level of an initiation story is when the protagonist goes through an event that changes them slightly while the third level changes the protagonist and goes into adulthood.

How to Tell a True war Story Predominantly, How to Tell a True War Story is a story that delves deep into the relationship that exists between storytelling and war experience. The story is told halfway from O’Brien’s role as a soldier and as a reprise of a plethora of Vietnam stories. The other half is told from his role as a storyteller as a discourse on the storytelling art. Accordingly, O’Brien’s story shows that a storyteller has the power to shape the readers’ opinions and experiences. In the same way, O’Brien story distorts one’s perception on the right and the wrong.

In "How to Tell a True War Story" the narrator mentions various ways the soldiers coped with the trauma caused by the Vietnam War, each soldier developed different ways to fill the empty void created by the gruesome war. Such as Rat Riley who tortured a defenseless water buffalo to compensate for the loss of his best friend, or when the six man patrol unit decided to blowup a mountain due to the lack of noise.

The Witness to War: Serving a Nation project presented many great moments, along with a few challenging ones. Having the opportunity to interview a Vietnam veteran, whom I give my utmost respect to, was an absolute privilege. From this project, I was able to take away some great lessons. I believe I deserve a high grade for the work I put in, and I also believe my partner deserves a good grade for the effort she put forth.

It can be hard to fully comprehend the effects the Vietnam War had on not just the veterans, but the nation as a whole. The violent battles and acts of war became all too common during the long years of the conflict. The war warped the soldiers and civilians characters and desensitized their mentalities to the cruelty seen on the battlefield. Bao Ninh and Tim O’Brien, both veterans of the war, narrate their experiences of the war and use the loss of love as a metaphor for the detrimental effects of the years of fighting.