Monday, January 12, 2015

"How to Tell a True War Story" Discussion

Post your group's answers to the two questions from the screen as a comment to this post:
According to O'Brien, how do you tell a true war story? What does he mean when he says that true war stories are never about war? What does he mean when he writes of one story, "That's a true story that never happened"?

What are some challenges soldiers might face in communicating their experiences in war to civilians, using examples from the text. Why is it so hard to tell a true war story? How, according to O'Brien, can we tell if a war story is true?

3 comments:

  1. #1. Make it believable for you stomach and the audience. In a true war story it’s difficult to separate what happened and what seemed to happen. “In many cases a true war story cannot be believed” (O’brien 76) “it never ends” (O’brien 36)

    #2. The civilians haven’t been there and experienced it, “He waits two months. The dumb cooze never rights back” (O’brien 68). Because the person telling it believes it also. Nobody listens and nobody cares about the stories unless it involves some sort of personal gain or victory. “You can tell by what questions they ask” (O’brien 83)

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  2. You can’t tell a true war story because you lose your sense of truth and how in a true war story nothing is really true. You can tell a true war story by the questions you ask. True war stories that are never about war are about what’s inside the story. You can tell a true war story if you just keep telling it.


    “She can’t understand why people want to wallow in all the blood and gore.” Civilians usually don’t understand the truth and the meaning of the war and being in the war. It hard to tell a true war story because people have a negative opinion on it and don’t understand what totally happened. You can tell if a war story is true if the author doesn’t put all of the fighting stuff in and talks about the relationships, sorrows, love and memory.

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  3. There is no moral and is often not about war. the most true war stories never happen.

    There going to have trouble communicating because the people tell are not going to understand. you wants add more things. if there is no moral( O’Brien 63), and by the questions you ask(O’Brien pg 83), i’ll picture Rat Kiley’s face, his grief, and i’ll think, you dumb cooze, because she wasn’t listening. it wasn’t a war story. it was a love story. but you can’t say that. all you can do is tell it one more time patiently, adding and subtracting,making up a few thing to get the real truth( O’Brien 85).

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