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The Vietnam war is considered America’s first great loss, before this Americans were victorious against all enemies. The soldier’s burden is immense but those who served from the draft in the Vietnam war carry the greatest. Those who served were forced into roles they did not choose in order to appear masculine and strong. This brought discomfort and fear to many of those soldiers and they came home with that fear and anxiety in their hearts. Thus injuring an entire generation and changing the way American’s view war. In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien forces the reader to experience the pain and tribulation that soldiers fell victim to in the Vietnam war, as well as making the reader culpable for the ignorance of the American public.
In the vignette “Good Form,” O’Brien puts an emphasis on placing the reader in his situation by using second person point of view in order to allow the reader to experience the war themselves. When O’Brien reveals the happening truth he allows the reader into his mind not only during the war, but 20 years later. During the Vietnam war, Tim was still
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He brings the reader to feel the emotions right along side of him in an effort to properly culpilpate the American people to the hell that was much of his young adult life. “How to Tell a True War Story” is the first time O'Brien talks about the physical feeling the emotions have caused. He explains, “Nothing turns inside. It comes down to gut instinct. A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe” (49). O’Brien uses this line to get the reader to feel the truth of the brutality that these soldiers faced. Whether the story is true or not is of little importance because the emotional truth conveys exactly what Tim is feeling and that feeling is the one that stays with the reader for years to