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How Does O Brien Tell A True War Story

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The story of the shit field keeps on being told, O'Brien does not stop talking about it in the book. O'Brien says that if a story keeps on coming back, it might show that it is a true war story, "You can tell a true war story by the way it never seems to end," (72). PTSD, the effects of the story do not lessen. So it's always replaying in the mind. Like the person would never forget that one story, because he knows that it was his fault and it haunts him. O'Brien keeps on talking about this field for four chapters, then he stops after going to the field with his daughter, "Twenty years. A lot like yesterday, a lot like never. In a way, maybe, I'd gone under with Kiowa, and now after two decades I'd mostly worked my way out," (178). In the fourth …show more content…

O'Brien uses a lot of offensive words in this story of Kiowa dying in the field, "As first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil," (65-66). The evil in the story is the enemy soldiers or the opposite side that you are fighting. While obscenity is the curse words, which the soldiers use in the story. But it is also the author who uses these words to describe a place or person in the story. As well evil is in most war stories, because there is always a point in the story where your friend got killed by enemy soldiers or if one of the soldiers was going against his friend. When the soldiers were looking for Kiowa's in the field, Norman was trying to be funny, "Man, talk about irony. I bet if Kiowa was here, I bet he'd just laugh. Eating shit--it's your classic irony," (158). Their best friend just died from mortar fire, which caused him to sink into the field made of human waste. Which VC is the evil soldiers and after the battle, the soldiers are making jokes and saying curse words. The reason for this, is that they just got through a hellish night with not a lot of sleep and now they are looking for their best buddy who drowned in Vietnam waste disposal field. While there is obscenity and evil in the story, it is still hard to figure out the truth and the lie in the

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