What is true? This is something we encounter every day of our lives. When a friend tells us they were up late last night studying, or when a teacher tells us there will be an assembly, or a pop quiz, or no homework, we are always questioning the validity of their statements. How true is what they say? When a teacher says there is no homework does he mean that you don't have to turn anything in, but you should read ahead for the discussion, or does he really mean go home and do whatever it is you do when you have free time because I am being nice?
In The Things They Carried, O'Brian also addresses this issue of truth. He begins the story entitled "How to Tell a True War Story" with the words "This is true"(67). But throughout the entire book he as the author, and you as the reader, begin to discover what really makes something true, especially in terms of war.
The way O'Brian tells some of his war stories reminds me of the poem Nefarious War by Li Po. Often American culture views war as heroic and manly, and often we forget some of the hard parts. We forget all the lives that are finished because of our army. We forget that when our soldier wins, another human being has been lost. O'Brian understands that killing is hard and that killing is evil, as we see from the guilt we feel as he imagines the life the man he has killed could have had. O'Brian says that a true war story must have a tint of evil in it, and as Li Po describes the way the soldiers kill, you can't help but cringe.
The barbarian does man-slaughter for plowing;
On his yellow sand-plains nothing has been seen but blanched skulls and bones....
In the battlefield men grapple each other and die;
The horses of the vanquished utter lamentable cries to heaven,
While ravens and kites peck at human entrails,
Carry them up in their flight, and hang them on the branches of dead trees.
So, men are scattered and smeared over the desert grass,
And the generals have accomplished nothing.
This poem reeks of evil. As O'Brian requires of a true war story, it turns my stomach.
O'Brian says that often in a true war story there is a "surreal seemingness" because it is difficult to separate what is true from what seems to be true. This is true in Li Po's poem as well. The way it is written, with so many metaphors, it is hard to tell what is true and what isn't and the poem almost seems like it is happening in a dream.
O'Brian also stresses the lack of importance the facts should have. The story is about something more than what actually literally happened. Because this is a poem, there is no recitation of facts. You don't know who went where or who did what. But you feel the war. You can feel how the war feels to the poet. You feel like you are there, living the war, without even knowing where anyone was standing. This seems like the mark of a true war story.
To read the full poem Nefarious War by Li Po: click here
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