True War Story, by Tim O\'Brien. Specifically,

¶ … True War Story," by Tim O'Brien. Specifically, it will discuss are there universal truths that apply to all people and societies; or do we live in a state of relativism, one in which perception dictates how we will respond to the tasks that we are given, or to the world around us? What happened to Rat Kiley and Curt Lemon? What part of Rat Kiley's story do you think is true - if any? Why does O'Brien write the book the way he does? Why does he tell the story the way he does, and what is it that he wants you to understand?

THE TRUTH OF WAR true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things they have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it" (O'Brien). The author contradicts this thought throughout the story, and contradicts his own words too, but that is part of the beauty of the style and power of this piece, you never can really tell what is true, and what is not.

Curt Lemon is the real "hero" of this short story that is part of the book "The Things They Carried," by Tim O'Brien. He is killed during the Vietnam War, and Rat Kiley, his friend, writes a letter home to Curt's sister, trying to explain what a good soldier and friend he was, but the sister never writes back, and Rat is hurt and disturbed by her lack of response to his moving letter. Rat makes Curt's life bigger and better than it was to try to make his sister feel better, but all he ends up doing is creating a picture of someone who did not exist, and Lemon's family must know it. They respond to the truth the only way they know how, they ignore it, which is what many people do when they are faced with changes in life, or the world as we know it.

The truth is, Curt did not die a hero's death. He was goofing around with Rat, and was killed in a stupid accident. He stepped on a booby trap while playing catch with a smoke grenade, and died. The letter Rat sent to Curt's sister was a lie, and she must have known it, and so did not grace it with an answer. Her brother was young, just a nineteen-year-old kid, and not ready for the rigors of war, or the horror, or the death.

O'Brien continues the "truth" theme throughout the story, telling people how to recognize a true war story, and how to recognize the truth of war. He contradicts himself because war it self is contradictory, and so is truth. "In many cases, a true war story cannot be believed. If you believe it, be skeptical. It's a question of credibility. Often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn't normal because the normal stuff is necessary to make you believe the incredible craziness" (O'Brien).

O'Brien writes the story from several points-of-view for a reason, because he wants the reader to decide what the ultimate truth of the story is, and so tells it from several different sides and perspectives. We understand Rat's pain at the loss of his friend, and it is reiterated when the narrator tells the story of him shooting the baby water buffalo after Lemon is killed. Rat tells his own story about the letter he wrote, but others know of it, and reiterate its importance to Rat, and how hurt he was when the "dumb cooze" did not write back. Rat copes with his friend's loss, but it takes time, and he suffers.

The story talks about the truth in war, and how true war stories often have morals that sometimes do not become clear until years later. "In a true war story, if there's a moral at all, it's like the thread that makes the cloth. You can't tease it out. You can't extract the meaning without unraveling the deeper meaning. And in the end, really, there's nothing much to say about a true war story, except maybe 'Oh'" (O'Brien). That is true of real life, too, not just the war. Sometimes there is simply no moral or reason to what happens in life, and sometimes it becomes clear only later what the real moral was. This searching for a moral affects how we live our lives, and how we take on new tasks. We consistently hope to make the right "true" decisions in our lives, so we can live better lives, and participate fully in the world around us. We have to learn how to recognize those "true" decisions, just as O'Brien says we have to recognize true war stories. Alternately, the decisions we make can certainly be wrong, or "lies," just as many of the war stories were about the men and women who fought in Vietnam.

O'Brien also makes the story very real by having the characters remember so vividly the sounds, sights, and even smells that they experienced twenty years before. "I still remember that trail junction and the giant trees and a soft dripping sound somewhere beyond the trees. I remember the smell of moss. Up in the canopy there were tiny white blossoms, but no sunlight at all, and I remember the shadows spreading out under the trees where Lemon and Rat Kiley were playing catch with smoke grenades" (O'Brien). These details make the story seem more true, but also show how important the time was to the characters, and how they reacted to it, and have remembered it all these years. It was "true" to them, and affected their lives from then on.