How to Tell a True War Story

Ashley Estrada

Eng 102/ Tim O’Brian Blog #2

“Though it is odd, you’re never more alive than when you’re almost dead. You recognize what’s valuable. Freshly, as if for the first time, you love what’s best in your life and in the world, all that might be lost” (O’Brian 78). This is a passage from the story, How to Tell a True War Story by Tim O’Brian. Oh, how true this passage is. It is not until we have lost, or are about to lose the important things in life do we appreciate them. If we were to live everyday as if it were our last, we would be stressless, spontaneous people wouldn’t we? In How to Tell a True War Story, O’Brian tells us about a soldier named “Rat”. He lost his best friend in war, and took this very hard.

Rat, and his late friend, Curt Lemon shared a series of good times and memories with each other. After Lemon passed away, Rat wrote a letter to Lemon’s sister, informing her of the bad news. Unfortunately, she never had the courtesy to write him a response. This must have hurt. Rat took this very hard as well. Throughout the story, we see that Rat is a very emotionally-driven person. Emotion easily takes control of his actions.

One example of his loss of control due to emotions was his incident with the buffalo. He and a few other soldiers find and capture a baby buffalo. That night, Rat goes out of control. He begins shooting the buffalo. He was not shooting it to kill, but to torture. This was a fairly disturbing scene in the story. It was real. I like real stories. Stories that put a “sugar-coating” on the truth to be easier on the reader’s ears and feelings are not real. This made the overall moral of the story come to life. Hence the title, How to Tell a True War Story.

http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/mcgraw-tim/live-like-you-were-dying-13619.html.

In a war these are the thoughts of the soldiers. Their thoughts are not completely focused on the terrible things. This is why in a true war story, it seems to be fake. “The pictures get jumbled; you tend to miss a lot. And then afterward, when you go to tell about it, there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed” (O’Brian 68).

It is curiosity that catches the reader's attention while reading the Colonel by Carolyn Forche. By glancing at the poem on paper, the whole form of it sparked my interest. This poem was different than what I thought because it is set up more like a story. There is one paragraph, with no structure really, simply a square text box. This poem differs from what we imagine a poem to be by surprising us with off the wall, gruesome things. Upon scanning the first few lines, you picture a normal, everyday family seen; the wife, daughter and son. After painting this picture in your mind, a curve ball is thrown in with the pistol laying next to the man on the cushion. "There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the cushion beside him." (Line 4)

This only starts the darker things in the poem, and starts to take the path in an opposite direction, toward an evil life. There were several things in this poem that were left unanswered, and was a little difficult to follow. I have to admit for one, that the speaker does not really give away who he is. This first lines start confusing you right away. "What you have heard is true. I was in his house." (Line 1) It doesn't really tell throughout the story what relation he has to "him". The most obvious gruesome thing in this story of course, is the human ears. There is am extremely inhuman thing stated after mentioning them; "They were like dried peach halves". (Line 23) Where the heck did this come from?
The last thing I would like to mention that threw me for a loop was this line:
"I am tired of fooling around he said. As for the rights of anyone,
tell your people they can go f--- themselves." (Line 27)

This is not something that would be in a normal poem, and is why this one sure catches your attention with curiosity. This is a good thing for an author to do. It is not so much what you write about, but how different it is from other work. originality is the new "accepted normal". The more unique you are, the more accepted, which in the past was always the opposite. When I say this I am referring to all things these days, different is what catches the attention of people.

Song of Napalm by Bruce Weigl is excellent for drawing images in your mind. Each line from the first paints a picture with details, creating for every reader to envision the exact same thing. This poem also paints a picture and after a while, turns into something you don't expect. It is not easy to tell from the first few lines that this poem is going to turn more unhappy. It begins as a fairly happy tone. "The grass was never more blue in that light, more Scarlet; beyond the pasture." (Par.1) This sounds relaxing to me, like a beautiful pasture with horses in the misty distance. The next few lines was a big hint into what it would lead to. "Trees scraped their voices into the wind, branches Crisscrossed the sky like barbed wire." (Par.1 ) Barbed wire changes the tone from relaxing. Barbed wire is rough, and painful. The girl burning in the end did not give a happy feeling while reading this. This poem ends leaving you with the feeling that she burned, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

Bruce Weigl, “Song of Napalm” from Archaeology of the Circle: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 1999 by Bruce Weigl. Reprinted with the permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc., http://www.groveatlantic.com/.


Forche, Carolyn. "The Colonel." The Country Between Us. 1978.

Welcome Slideshow

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The above link is my welcome video; it is a slide show. Make sure to click the "Show Info" button in the top right-hand corner... It will tell you about each picture..

What Makes a Good Reader

The first think that Nabokov thinks makes a good reader is imagination. Without imagination, it would be difficult to pull everything out of the story that the author intended for you to get out of it. Imagination allows you to forget about the world around you, and puts you in the story to feel what the characters are feeling, and be involved with what is going on. The next thing that Nabokov thinks a reader needs to fully understand, is a dictionary. Absolutely! We, as the reader want to take out everything that we can from what we read. It is very important to have a dictionary there and convenient, so as not to forget about something we didn't fully understand and draw the wrong conclusion out of it. Nabokov believes that an artistic sense is the next most important thing that a good reader will need. This helps you explore what the writer is trying to say through their work. Several writers don't spell out exactly what they are meaning, and leave it to the reader to draw a lot out. Lastly, is memory. Memory is important in reading, especially when reading novels, or works as long as that. You can't finish a novel in a short amount of time, and will need to remember what you read in your last sitting in order to jump back in. I find it important to remember little things, such as clues that the author gives to the ending; like in a movie.

I would say that these are the most important in my eyes as well. I would also put imagination at the top of my list. Imagination is really the most critical, depending on what you are reading. The more imagination I have, the more enjoyment I get out of reading. If I have in a crowded place, or anywhere that I am unable to focus, I don't get as much out of the reading, and in turn, don't have as much memory about what I read. Imagination also draws out the artistic sense we all have.]

I do consider myself a good reader. After reading this, I think that keeping a dictionary on me would be a good tool become a better reader. I do have a lot of imagination, and in turn comes the other qualities. I enjoy reading, so becoming a better reader, and making myself aware of these things is definitely something I want to do.