All of us are guilty of lying at one time or another. Whether it was a little white lie like whether the toothfairy is real or not, or if it was something significant, such as if you committed a serious crime, we have all done it. Lying is definitely a part of society, and no one really likes it or appreciates it. Especially when it concerns matters of the heart. In the book The Things They Carried, author Tim O"Brien lies frequently. There are times he will tell a sad, heart touching story, then tell you that it was not even true. This is incredibly frustrating to anyone that reads the book. However, I do not think that any publisher in the world would publish such a book if there was not a purpose for creating the fabrications in the first place. So it is to my sincere belief that Mr. O"Brien tells these fabrications for the purpose of proving a point, and for the benefit of the reader. .

             I have loved this book from the beginning, although had it not been for class discussion, I would not have caught on to much. I could feel, however, that there was something about this 'work of fiction" that made it different from the others that I have read before. I sit there sometimes with my mouth gaping open when I read about some of the ordeals they had to go through. It made you think. It gave you chills. It could even make you cry. So you can guess I was a pretty putout when I first read the line ".that story is made up." I actually had to read it again to make sure I was not reading it wrong. What a weirdo, I thought. What was this guy thinking? Then I read the next line. "I want you to feel what I felt," writes Mr. O"Brien. "I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth." .

             In story-truth, there can be exaggerations and even falsehoods. But in happening-truth, it is just the facts, and all the details are correct. No frills. It is what really did happen.