Tim O'Brian's How To Tell A True War Story

In this short piece by Tim O'Brian, our author uses his own personal experiences from his time in the Vietnam war to discuss war as a whole. His writing is not linear but always returns to the story of his fellow soldier Kurt Lemmon stepping on a mine and dying and the subsequent letter his friend Rat writes to Lemmon's sister. Rat writes a heartfelt letter and is angry when he gets no response. This reminds me of PTSD. Rat and his troop experienced something visceral and emotional and he tries to tell a civilian about it but she doesn't respond. Someone with PTSD has experiences from the trauma they experienced that someone else can't conceive. It is just as Tim O'Brian says, its not about the actual story but the meaning and the time in between. O'Brian brings up a story he was told about men laying in the jungle on a recon mission. He knows that the story is a lie or at the least embellished but its still a true war story. Its not the details that matter as much as the emotion it evokes in the listeners mind. War is terrible and the people that live through it come away with scars unseen, like Rat who is grieving his friends death and is driven to anger that his friends sister doesn't reply to him. O'Brian says that his account of Lemmon dying is just that, his account. He suggests that to Lemmon it was light killing him and that everyones angle of sight was different. This reminds me of PTSD because what he is saying is that everyone adjusted to the situation differently and it is printed in O'Brian's mind in a specific way.