How to Tell a True War Story

In "How to Tell a True War Story" O'Brien displays symptoms of PTSD by the way he writes his explanation of what a war story is. The two most noticeable tendencies in his writing is when he often transitions from talking about one particular war story without telling the full story, then starts to tell another story, then goes back to add more details to the previous story and his repetitive redefining of what a true war story is. He begins by talking about Rat's emotional state and the letter he wrote to Curt Lemon's sister after Curt was killed. Instead of explaining the cause of Curt's death, he writes about Rat and Curt's relationship and Mitchell Sanders' storytelling about a listening post in the mountains. While he wrote about these stories there were bits and pieces of details of the how Curt looked right before he died and after he stepped on the round, however the audience does not realize this until he actually explains Curt's death. This type of writing can be caused by his tendency to avoid certain memories. He may interrupt one story with another story right before he gets to the worst part because he is avoiding that particular part of a memory; it seems that every time he gave little details about Curt before fully describing his death, he would interrupt himself because the imagery of his death was disturbing. The other noticeable characteristic is he frequent definitions of a true war story; he make many different definitions of what a true war story is throughout his writing. It seems as if he does this because he is constantly unsure how to define a war story, or even war in general. This may be caused by his tendency to re-experience the many unusual and contrasting situations he encountered in war. It is clear in his writing that although he feels war is pain, he also mentions that it allows a soldier to fell more alive after being so close to death.  I find it interesting that he acknowledges the contradiction of war and the uselessness of attempting to tell a true war story. He basically spends most of a passage titled "How to Tell a True War Story" writing about war stories and ends by saying the story he told was not a war story and also that none of the people existed.