Is the Truth True?

Sometimes it is hard to distinguish what is true and what is false.  What are the components in a story that make it true?  In this case, what determines a war story to be true?  In How to Tell a True War Story, O'Brien discusses the elements that must be present in any war story in order for it to be true. A true war story is never moral, it embarrasses you, it has obscenity, it never ends, and you feel it in your stomach.  O'Brien's points make the nature of war stories contradicting.  Many people see war stories to be heroic and patriotic. I think by portraying war stories as being immoral and evil, he emphasizes the realities of war.  In reflecting back on the death of Curt Lemon, he finds that his memory became blurry in the sense that he couldn't differentiate what parts of the story were true or false.  This is an important observation by O'Brien because it shows the impacts of being in combat. Emotions can deeply impact a person's perception of a situation.  Memories can be clouded by stressful environments or situations.  The human brain is a creative entity in which it can create things that are not actually present in a memory.  This causes the question of credibility of a story. The craziest stories tend to question the truth within the story itself.

In the story, Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong, an outrageous war story can cause truth to be clouded by imagination.  The image of Fossie's girlfriend shows an innocent, young, and naive girl who is placed in the middle of Vietnam.  Throughout the story it is evident that the girl's personality and spirit is changing the longer her stay in the war.  She became part of Vietnam and then a legend among the men as a wild spirit roaming the fields and mountains of the country.  The fact that the US allowed a girlfriend to come visit her boyfriend during the war questions the credibility of the story.  I think that in the midst of combat and violence, the imagination of a soldier can be influenced by the trauma that surrounds him.  In a way, a true war story is one that makes you realize the vile nature of war and makes it seem like an unrealistic fantasy at the same time.