How To Tell a True War Story

When reading this, I had to slow down. I actually had to start over like three or four times because, I just didn’t understand everything. On every page, there was something new he said that confused me to the point that I had to reread the page, from the beginning. O’Brien first starts off saying that this war story is true. So, how is this true when the novel is fiction? I didn’t understand, and still don’t understand what he meant there. Then he begins to tell the story about Rat Kiley’s best friend Curt Lemon dies. A week after his friend is killed; Rat Kiley writes a letter to Curt’s sister. He explains to her, how much of a hero her brother was and how much he loved him. Rat has a hard time writing the letter. I totally understand how and why he feels that way. If I lost my best friend, I don’t think I would be strong enough to write a letter, talking about how much I loved her. But, he perservered through it, and sends it off to his sister. Two months pass, and his sister never writes back. Kiley calls the sister a “dumb cooze.” I didn’t know what a “cooze” meant, but I’m sure it has some bad connotations. I looked up the definition, but I can’t put it up here, because it’s a little too inappropriate for a school assignment.
   O’Brien insists that a true war story is not moral. A true war story tells us not to believe a story that seems moral. He uses Kiley’s actions as an example of how war stories aren’t moral. He explains that Curt died from steeping on a rigged mortar round. The way O’Brien explained him dying was almost beautiful. “…when he died it was almost beautiful, the way the sunlight came around him and lifted him up and sucked him high into a tree full of moss and vines and white blossoms.” At first, I thought the sun killed him, which would be a much more beautiful way of dying. Throughout the rest of the story, O’Brien mentions Lemon’s death. I think his death is a metaphor for how war is not moral or beautiful. When O’Brien tells this story to people, they seem to say things like, I “liked it”, or they “hate war stories”. For some reason, its women that he tells this story to. I wouldn’t think that a woman would appreciate or like a war story like a man would. Maybe men are tired of hearing war stories. O’Brien wishes he could tell the woman that the story wasn’t a war story, but a love story. I see what he means here. The friendship Kiley and Lemon shared, the way Rat got upset at his Lemon’s sister for not writing back, was love. I wish that all these stories had more love than war in them…