Tim O'Brien: Recounting War and PTSD

The first event O'Brien talks about is the death of his friend and fellow soldier, Curt Lemon. Initially he doesn't give the whole story. Instead, he talks about the aftermath in regards to Curt's good friend Rat. Rat is deeply distressed by Curt's death, which is later revealed to have been extremely graphic and unexpected. In an attempt to be there for Curt's family, he writes an extremely heartfelt letter to Curt's sister, which O'Brien describes as terrific, personal, and touching. He then bluntly states she never wrote back and writes her off as a dumb cooze.

O'Brien then changes tone and becomes very blunt and to the point about what makes a war story true. In so many words he says that there are no silver linings, no lessons to be learned, no clarity, and no satisfaction garnered from the story of any sort. He claims any story that tries to present these things as truths of war is deliberately deceptive.

" You can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil." (1)

I found it interesting that about a paragraph after O'Brien says this, he begins to describe the location and setting of the incident with Curt in a positive light. He talks about his friends and the ways they would play games to kill time. He even does this with Curt's death. Instead of talking about pulling his friends organs down from a tree, he focuses on Curt's handsome appearance and the "almost beautiful" (2) lighting created by the exploding mine, which he calls sunlight. It's almost like he warns you that the "true" story he's about to tell is not indicative of what really happened in the slightest. O'Brien recounts the story several times afterwards, getting more graphic and honest with each telling. This confusing and varied repetition seems to be directly related to PTSD flashbacks. Flashbacks are a common symptom of PTSD in which the sufferer is forced to relive whatever trauma(s) are causing the damage.

O'Brien repeats stories and blatantly contradicts himself many times during the article. It feels like he's doing this in a way to force the reader to take in the stories as though they're the jumbled, scattered, and sometimes deceptive memories of PTSD sufferers. There is no clarity for the returning soldiers, no resolutions, and no personal satisfaction.

In my opinion the most powerful and important message in the article is that these are only "war stories" to us bystanders. To those telling the them, these are inescapable and more often than not horrific life stories. It's impossible for these people to divide their entire psyche into pre and post-war, and that becomes a burden that ends up being too much for an alarming amount of veterans, driving many to mental and emotional instability, substance abuse, and worse.