Response to How to Tell a True War Story

I haven’t read something about war in English before. Even in Chinese, I do not like something that related to war. War makes me think bad, dark, death and so on. But this story did not. Maybe this is because it is a narrative story and also add something others. The name of those story is called meta-narrative, which I have noticed later.

The title of the article is “how to tell a true war story.” The “how” means the author should tell us what does a true war story is and how to tell it. Actually, the author did it well. The beginning of the article is “this is true,” which is the first sentence of the small war story as well. The first small war story is about a friend of Rat has been killed in a war and Rat has written a letter to the friend’s sister but no feedback. Of course. The author of the article had some appraisals to it. O’Brien think the war should not be moral. And he think there are nothing special in this war story.

So the second war story is coming. That’s almost the same story but make another way to write about it. This story are more likely to tell what is happening in that war but not really consider how good the Lemon is. The author also gives some suggest: a soldier died but his partner should still be careful. The memory can be a mess not a clam story. That’s why the story is not likely true.

The third is going to talk another war story: an old soldier’s telling about a six-person-team’s latency for a week. The one tells more amazing thing. The six persons has heard a lot of things which seems like untrue but entirely true. It makes me confused. However, the author did not. The true war story is supposed to be like that. “I can’t believe it with my stomach.” “If truly told, makes the stomach believe.” If it is true it should be believed.

The forth war story is still the same like the first and second one. This one writes more detailed and add some other thing like baby buffalo. That’s what make the story seems true. In a war there are not only sacrifice, like what the author said “Wall is hell, but that’s not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love”, war is also the change: makes boy man; makes fun; makes dead. Truth are always contradictory. War is, too. War is almost right and almost wrong. It depends.

The fifth version is still the same story but this one more about the remembrance of the war and Lemon. The description is not soul-stirring but makes us thinks a lot. Author says “This is a true story that never happened.”

I think it is true. But later the author will not care who will believe the story is true or not. The only purpose is to write the story and show us which a war is. The mood will change through the life. I can know from the first one to the last one, the author of the stories has think a lot and made a lot of amendment. The purpose of writing the story probably being changed, from the surface to the deepest.