"How to Tell a True War Story"

The writing techniques used by Tim O’Brien in “How to Tell a True War Story,” demonstrate how a soldier’s brain is affected psychologically by the war. A soldier when retelling a war story is reliving the experience, much like PTSD episodes in which the soldier feels as if he/she were back in combat. The storytelling written by O’Brien seems very repetitive due to the constant flashbacks one may experience of the war. PTSD has several symptoms including: re-experiencing, avoidance, and numbing. O’Brien’s writing demonstrates how PTSD affected his memories. When O’Brien explains the killing of the baby water buffalo, he demonstrated the way soldiers are numb to their feelings.  While Rat Kiley was transferring his anger to the baby water buffalo, the soldiers instead of preventing Rat Kiley from ultimately killing the animal just stood there watching him, “the whole platoon stood there watching, feeling all kinds of things, but there wasn’t a great deal of pity for the baby water buffalo” (O’Brien, 6). The soldiers were numb, they hardly expressed any emotion until Rat Kiley had begun to cry and had finished his anger outburst. The way O’Brien describes this scene and constantly repeats the same story basis (i.e. Lemon was dead, Rat Kiley had written a letter, and had not received a response) effectively show the reader how the war/PTSD affects storytelling. Upon completion of this story, one notices the different flashbacks of the war that the author has while retelling his experiences. The sudden flashbacks make the story seem out of sequence; however, O’Brien was affected psychologically by war which affected the way he tells his story. The sudden flashbacks allow one to feel as if O’Brien were personally informing the reader on his war memories, since storytelling (on a personal level) is sometimes out of sequence.