The first sentence insists the story is true, which could lead the reader to infer normally a war story is not. How to Tell a True War Story takes place during the Vietnam War. Tim O'Brien fought in the Vietnam War, which could be a reason to write the story. Bob Kiley, one of the main characters, whose nickname was Rat, feels low and despicable for his best friend's death. Rat's best friend's name was Curt Lemon. O'Brien probably named Kiley Rat because of how he should feel. O'Brien possibly named Lemon because a lemon is sour and that is how Rat felt when Lemon was blew up. Rat writes to Lemon's sister to tell of Lemon's death. He expects her to write back, and after two months he loses hope. Furthermore, all Rat can say about Lemon's sister is "dumb cooze" (76). Rat fails to realize the sister has to plan a funeral, tell family of it, not to mention she has

On the day of Lemon's death, Rat and Lemon are playing under a sunless canopy, but as Lemon steps into a patch of sunlight, he detonates a booby trap. Two characters have to climb a tree to retrieve parts of Lemon's body. One character begins to sing the lemon song as he throws down parts of Lemon's body. Perchance Tim O'Brien views sunlight as the truth. To stay in the shade is to stay in the darkness of the mind; it is harder to tell the truth rather than lie. O'Brien describes Lemon's death as "almost beautiful." O'Brien said the images often get jumbled up because "when bad things happen we look, turn away, then look again." In war it seems, the normal stuff is usually false and the crazy stuff is true; therefore, the fields of images are distorted.

Mitchell Sanders, one of the Rats companions, is an interesting character. Furthermore Sanders seems to really come alive; most authors have to paint a character to create an effect. Sanders is already complete. Perhaps O'Brien named him Sanders because he is a sandy character, whereas the reader does not have a firm idea who Sanders is. Sand often looks the same until one looks closer at, which is what one has to do with Mitchell Sanders. O'Brien uses Sanders as a storyteller to the narrator. O'Brien uses foreshadowing that another story is about to start. Whenever Sanders begins storytelling, he starts flipping his yo-yo. Throughout the work, O'Brien uses rhythmic scheme. Often O'Brien starts a story using "in a true war story [. . .]," then he relates new material to the reader; next follows the story. O'Brien does a great job tying in these three areas.

Tim O'Brien contradicts himself. The narrator says "there is no moral to a true war story;" however, Sanders later tells the narrator the moral, which is, "you got to listen to your enemy." It leads the reader to infer one cannot trust a war story, which reiterates what O'Brien said earlier that one cannot believe a war story. The next section O'Brien says, "If there's a moral at all, it'

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1366
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)