Exploration 3 by Tabby Adkins

     My active reading is going well. They’re is always something that stands out to me and catches my attention in every story. How to Tell a True War Story has been my favorite story so far in that it is rude, true and obscene. In this story, he is very good at making you feel like a fool for believing the war stories as they are too normal so we are bound to believe it, and makes us feel like we should be skeptical about believing every crazy thing. O’Brien then puts you in the position of the characters and dramatizes so many small details. 

     He goes on to tell you that something that didn’t even happen could be true, and something that did happen is the farthest from the truth. He is messing with your pre existing thoughts about things you should believe and things that you shouldn’t. The irony in this chapter is outrageous and he just makes us feel the confusion and disappointment in a different way. 

     “And in the end, of course, a true war story is never about the war. It’s about the sunlight. It’s about the special way that dawn spreads out on a river when you know you must cross the river and march into the mountains and do things you are afraid to do. It’s about love and memory. It’s about sorrow. It’s about the sisters who never write back and people who never listen” (O’brien, page 81)

     The character that has stood out to me would be Rat Kiley in How to Tell a True War Story. In this chapter we see him react, cope and deal with the loss of his best friend. He seems to be the prime example of how difficult war is and the toll that it takes on people. I think that when Rat Kiley brutally killed the buffalo, he wasn’t seeing the buffalo at all. I think he was seeing all of his struggles and all of his emotions got brought to the surface all at once and the buffalo just happened to be his way of coping. This makes Rat Kiley a very interesting character and very necessary to the story that is being told.