Summary Of How To Tell A True War Story

War stories can be very challenging stories to write, and most war stories are just replicas of other war stories in which it is all action, it is what we already know about war. A true war story should touch upon the soldiers and the lives and battles within themselves, not just the fighting out in the field. O’Brien defines what a real war story is and how it should be written in the story “How to Tell a War Story.” O’Brien believes that a true war story lies within the reality of the situation. In other words, O’Brien believes that war stories should be about the truth of it, the hardships and daily battles with their partners and with their psychological challenges. A true war story is not someone writing about defeating the enemy, but it is about the steps and the ups and downs that got you to the victory. It is about the ambushes that failed and the lives that had been lost, the trust that was broken to get to where they are now.

When one of Rat's friends dies, he writes a story to the friend's sister. She never writes back, Rat's response is "the dumb cooze never writes back." (How to Tell a True War Story.10). O'Brien says that because of this response it is a true war story. With Curt Lemons death O'Brien gets into his idea of story-truth and happening truth because Curt died due to a mine, but they say it is as if sunlight had lifted him off the ground and right into a tree. O'Brien says even though it wasn't sunlight that in reality killed Lemon; it is what seemed like which makes it the truth of what happened. There is no clarity in war, which means that no war story is entirely true, but that is the beauty of