Essay 1: War rough draft
O'Brien's narrator of "How to Tell a True War Story" believes that a true war story never contains morality, virtue, or models for proper human behavior. Depending on how one looks at the situation this could be correct or false. When looked at from the perspective of an average everyday person (i.e. civilian) this is correct. However, when looked at from the eyes of a veteran this may be perceived as entirely incorrect. What it really comes down to is what does the narrator mean when he says the word 'true'?
Soldiers seem to create their own sort of subculture. Subcultures create their own code of morals, laws, virtues and models for proper human behavior as a member of that subculture. For soldiers, it is a way of survival and a way of bonding together as brothers pushing through hell. As O'Brien writes in "The Things They Carried" ,"Some things they carried in common... They shared the weight of memory. They tooke up what others could no longer bear. Often they carried each other, the wounded or weak." (85) This simple statement shows brotherhood amongst men whose moral is to not waste the things they are sure to need and virtue is to not leave behind their fallen commrades be they wounded physically or otherwise. It shows a proper soldier shares the weight of the memories of what he and his brothers have done in battle and what they left behind in order to do so.
The narrator of "...True War Story" uses the word "true" in a way that it is not meant to be taken lightly. In a ime of war truth is hard to tell and it is a sort of luxury. And yet, he also shows that truth in war is also a rather tongue in cheek subject. The narrator states,"You can tell a true war story by the answers you ask. Somebody tells a story, let's say, and afterward you ask, 'Is it true?' and if the answer matters, you've got your answer." (O'brien 103) showing the luxury and weight of truth in war. He goes on to tell a story of a soldier who jumps out to take the blast of a granade that ends up killing him and the other three soldiers he was trying to protect. In the last moments of life one soldier asks him "The fuck you do that for?", to which he simply replies "Story of my life." The soldiers smile. The soldiers die. And he describes this as a true war story that never happened. (O'Brien 103) In telling this story he is saying that regardless of luxury and weight, in times of war, truth is up to interrpretation. It is what you need for it to be in order to continue on through the day.
The model for proper human behavior might argue that it would be an honor to die in glory fighting for your country. The model for proper behavior as a soldier would tell that guy that he was full of shit. As described by Wilfred Owen in "Dulce et Decorum est", "My friend, you would not tell with such high zest/ To children ardent for some desperate glory,/ The old lie: Dulce et decorum est/ Pro patria mori." (25-28) and by the measure of the thesis in question here (that of O'brien's narrator) this is indeed a poem of truth about war. This soldiers virtue or moral would be to save the next generation not only by fighting hard for his country but by refusing to lie to them by glorifying it with honor instead of telling the horror of watching his comrade die.
In short, if one looks at the belief of O'brien's narrator from an outsider's perspective they would agree out right. However, if one could bother, hard as it may be, if one could strive, to look at this through the eyes of a soldier they would see how tongue in cheek that statement is. How, in all honesty, each true war story has an underlying code of morals and virtues. It just isn't the same code that the majority of humanity is accustomed to. That the truth of a war story is entirely open to interpritation. At the end of the story, it's all about whether or not the answer matters.