TIM O'BRIEN

Tim O’Brien

I read, How to tell a true war story, it was really graphic. It amazed me how O’Brien and the other soldiers were so comfortable with all the death they were around in Vietnam. They did not really mourn their lost comrades there was no time for it. I thought it was horrible to imagine having to pick up a fellow soldiers body parts and how they could sing while doing it. I got some what sick thinking about it. They way Curt Lemon and Rat Kiley where always messing around it seemed like they did not pay attention to what they were doing. They were horsing around when Curt got killed it made me wonder if they had not been playing with the smoke grenades, would Curt have died on the land mine? I really thought the story about the baby buffalo was cruel. I did not understand why Rat would want to hurt it for no reason. Then I thought that maybe he was taking out his anger and frustrations from Curt’s death out on the animal. What I thought was cruel was how the other soldiers did not try to stop him and did not question him about torturing the buffalo. They were too comfortable with death that they did not think twice about saving the innocent buffalo and let Rat kill it. I liked how O’Brien said that war stories are not about war, but about the relationships soldiers had and about the camaraderie