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"That's how I felt--like a civilian--and it made me sad. These guys had been my brothers. We'd loved one another" (O'Brien 185).
O'Brien now talks about how leaving the warfront made him feel like he lost more, he lost his family, stories, and a purpose in the war.

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Personal Note: Writing about the War (Quote)

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Personal Note: Writing about the War (Quote)

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"Yet when I received Norman Bowker's letter, it occured to me that the act of writing had led me through a swirl of memories that might otherwise have ended in paralysis or worse. By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up others" (O'Brien 152).
O'Brien admits that writing about the war was a sort of therapy for dealing with the trauma of the war.

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Personal Note: The Aftermath of being at War (Quote)

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Personal Note: The Aftermath of being at War (Quote)

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"In the spring of 1975, near the time of Saigon's final collapse, I received a long, disjointed letter in which Bowker described the problem of finding a meaningful use for his life after the war" (O'Brien 149).
O'Brien confronts the fact many soldiers had a lot of trouble adjusting back in to the world that sent them to war. Many suffered silently afterward with PTSD, some even taking their life.

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Personal Note: Telling Stories Back Home (Quote)

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Personal Note: Telling Stories Back Home (Quote)

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"A good war story, he thought, but it was not a war for war stories, nor for talk of valor, and nobody in town wanted to know about the terrible stink. They wanted foo intentions and good deeds" (O'Brien 143).
Arriving back home and trying to share the stories to people who do not understand, O'Brien and his friends quickly realized that very few people actually wanted to listen to the truth.

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Personal Note: Transparency From O'Brien (Quote)

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Personal Note: Transparency From O'Brien (Quote)

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"He was a short, slender young man of about twenty. I was afraid of him--afraid of something--and as he passed me on the trail I threw a grenade that exploded at his feet and killed him" (O'Brien 125).
One of O'Brien's stories told about the first time he killed in war. This particular story stuck out to me because of the personal content and the elevation of emotion within the text. This story also was in the first person point of view, making it even more powerful.

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Personal Note: The Treasure of Innocence (Quote)

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Personal Note: The Treasure of Innocence (Quote)

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"'You know,' he said abruptly, 'I loved her.' 'Say again?' 'A lot. We all did I guess. The way she looked, Mary Anne made you think about those girls back home, how pure and innocent they all are, how they'll never understand any of this, not in a billion years'" (O'Brien 108).
Reading the longing of innocence from war among the soldiers only emphasized the horror and wrongness of war.

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Personal Note: What War Does to Innocence (Paraphrase)

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Personal Note: What War Does to Innocence (Paraphrase)

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During one of the war stories O'Brien narrated he reflected on one story Rat told the Alpha Company (O'Brien 86). It was about a young, seventeen year old, girl who came to Vietnam to visit her boyfriend (O'Brien 89). Mary Anne quickly fell into the habit of being a soldier and lost her innocent look by became more and more curious and relient of the adrenaline of war (O'Brien 94-106).
O'Brien told Rat's story with immense sadness. Everything described was as if his heart was pouring, and over flowing with the feeling of what anyone could do to save Mary Anne's innocence.

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O'Brien describes different view on what war is and eventually compares all the war stories to a love story (O'Brien 76-81).
How O'Brien writes about war opens the eyes of the reader revealing how little of an idea the common person has about war and the effect on the people who fought in it.

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Personal Note: Morals in a War Story (Quote)

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Personal Note: Morals in a War Story (Quote)

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"In a true war story, if there's a moral at all, it's like the thread that makes the cloth. You can't tease it out. You can't extract the meaning without unraveling the deeper meaning. And in the end, really, there's nothing much to say about a true war story, except maybe 'Oh'" (O'Brien 74).
O'Brien leaves his character and comes out with complete truth emphasizing one of his themes. O'Brien does not try and scare the reader with war stories but instead show how the stories told help connect the teller and listener, as well as saving them.

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Personal Note: "A True War Story" (Quote)

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Personal Note: "A True War Story" (Quote)

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"A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, not restrain men from doing the things men have always done" (O'Brien 65).
Many critics place the author Tim O'Brien among "war writers". However, O'Brien goes deeper into the meaning behind the title of being a war writer and telling a "true war story".

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Personal Note: O'Brien speaking through Tim (Quote)

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Personal Note: O'Brien speaking through Tim (Quote)

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"In June of 1968, a month after graduating from Macalester College, I was drafted to fight a war I hated. I was twenty-one years old. Young, yes, and politically naive, but even so the American war in Vietnam seemed to me wrong. Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons" (O'Brien 38).
Tim O'Brien becomes character and author during this passage. As O'Brien shares his own college and drafting experience with his own characters.

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Personal Note: War as Stories (Quote and Paraphrase)

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Personal Note: War as Stories (Quote and Paraphrase)

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"Stories are for joining the past to the future" (O'Brien 36).
Tim O'Brien, the character, recounts several peaceful, funny, and happy stories. Stating that not all war stories are bloody. (O'Brien 31-35).
Tim O'Brien, the author, continually confesses that he became a writer because of the Vietnam War and the 'stories' he experienced there.

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"They were afraid of dying bt they were even more afraid to show it" (O'Brien 19).
When Tim O'Brien, the author, was first drafted into the army he suffered moral and emotional conflicts. He considered running from the draft, accepting imprisonment, or simply running away to Canada. However, O'Brien accepts the call to action because of the fear of losing his friends and family rather than his own selfishness.

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Personal Note: War Changes Love (Paraphrase)

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Personal Note: War Changes Love (Paraphrase)

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Tim O'Brien, the character, struggled with the his love of Martha over the love of his soldiers. Tim decides that he cannot love both so he chooses his soldiers over Martha. However, Tim cannot simply leave his love for Martha behind so his love turns into a type of hated love (O'Brien 23).
The author, Tim O'Brien, does not mentioned having a special someone waiting for him at home while he was at War. So hearing the struggles of love on the battlefield opens a new sight to Tim O'Brien.

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Personal Note: War making a Boy into a Man (Quote)

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Personal Note: War making a Boy into a Man (Quote)

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"He tried not to cry...He felt shame. He hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war" (O'Brien 16).
O'Brien's writing brought events to life from the detail and blunt honesty. Everything he writes in his novels he experienced or saw it happen. This is the characters, Tim O'Brien, experience of loss at war.