Vietnam Writers Lend Insight into Writing a War Story
by Jonathan Pride
I remember practicing bomb threat routines in kindergarten in the slim chance the United States and New York were hit by the Soviet Union. The procedure was simple: when the air raid sounded, everyone got under their desks and put their heads between their legs and their fingers in their ears. We would stay in this position as long as the warning lasted.
The world was at war without guns firing or rockets launching, coining the term “Cold War.” Although I never understood why we remained in the building, in locked classrooms, underneath unsteady desks, the threat was real and, therefore, such precautions were necessary. Whether I knew it or not, the drill at Public School 20, a five floor school house on Staten Island, NY, was my small contribution to civic duty, serving as a “citizen solider.”
Throughout the 1990’s and especially on September 11th, 2001, my status as a “citizen soldier” ripened. I, like many others who lived through the day, have memories to share and stories to tell. These accounts are war stories.
My father is a veteran of the United States Air Force. He served during the Korean War. There was always subtle evidence of tears whenever he recounted his memories. I cried internally whenever my strong father, the rock of my household, would lose himself in his own emotions. His stories were simple and yet so very complicated. He told of nights in Korea where the only thing worse than being hit by the “hawk,” the sub-zero winters, was the enemy that lurked in fields beyond the airfields. He also referred to the friendships he formed and the bonds forged in the midst of war. It’s always hard to believe love can exist when surrounded by hatred and anger. It wasn’t the stories that made this notion difficult to imagine, but my own opinions about what exactly happens during war. I guess my immaturity prompted my assumption that because the United States sent men and women into a war zone with the intention of killing, that they were automatically converted into monsters, simply carrying out the orders of commanders.
Everyone has a war story and a different way of telling it. Fiction, non-fiction, and poetry are just three of these ways. Tim O’Brien, author of the literary acclaimed novels, If I Die in a Combat Zone and Going After Cacciato, served as an infantryman from1970 to 1971 during the Vietnam War. In his collection of short stories
The Things They Carried, O’Brien explains what a true war story should entail. He writes:
In many cases a true war story cannot be believed. If you believe it, be skeptical. It’s a question of credibility. Often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn’t, because the normal stuff is necessary to make you believe the truly incredible craziness. In other cases you can’t even tell a true war story. Sometimes it’s just beyond telling.
When I was five years old in that small classroom at PS20, it’s hard to believe that the little desk, used to hold my books, was also supposed to protect me in the event of a bombing. It’s crazy! It is hard to believe! However, it’s not the typical war story. Right? Well, maybe it is. Who says only those who have fought in war can tell war stories? O’Brien’s stories have characters who are contentious objectors, war protesters, as well as G.I.’s. With such an assortment portrayed “in country” as well as in combat (which is also depicted in multiple ways), he’s often cited by his fellow Vietnam veterans as the writer which reflects their experience.
O’Brien is known for his fictional accounts of actual events. That sounds contradictory, but take this scenario for example: Four men walk down a road in a war zone and the enemy launches a grenade in the middle of them. They all freeze for a moment and as if second nature, one of the guys jumps on the grenade. Instantly, his body is blown apart and his remains are everywhere. The three other men survive. They live to tell the story to their sons and their sons tell it to their own sons. Eventually, the story becomes a legend. It’s the crazy stuff, like O’Brien says, that make stories believable. Perhaps, the guy didn’t willingly jump on the grenade, but was pushed onto it. Is the story less credible? War, after all, is a mystery. It doesn’t make sense. It’s violent and inhumane. It’s death and bloodshed. There are no generalizations in war stories. Nothing can be assumed. Therefore, maybe the guy really was pushed or fell or tripped. The original story is never absolutely true. O’Brien’s point is that memory and the actual action of recounting it, begin to separate what actually happened into one’s perspective of events. He writes:
Almost everything is true. Almost nothing is true. At its core, perhaps, war is just another name for death, and yet any soldier will tell you, if he tells the truth, that proximity to death brings with it a corresponding proximity to life. After a firefight, there is always the immense pleasure of aliveness.
The post-firefight “aliveness” that O’Brien speaks about is the life behind the story. It gives its characters more strength and courage and it helps them achieve the unachievable.
As I grew older, I discovered my father never actually served during the conflict periods of the Korean War. A cease-fire was signed in 1953 between North and South Korean forces. My father arrived in South Korea in 1954. The “hawk” was the enemy he always referred to. In fact, he never actually saw a North Korean or Chinese combatant. He was never forced to dig trenches and was never fired upon. He was simply a member of an American occupying force halfway across the world. All the horrors that I assumed accompanied my father’s war stories were factious but based on a true event. This is the beauty of telling stories. Whether they are true or false, fact or fiction, does not determine what they have to offer.
What is the rite of passage? Who tells the best war stories? Stewart O’Nan, author of The Vietnam Reader (an anthology of war stories from a variety of writers), attempts to draw a comparison between a civilian and soldier who recount their experiences during a conflict. Quite naturally, the stress from battle is tremendous and therefore, the veteran’s account of a war is charged more interesting, and a lot more credible. On the contrary, civilians are forced to deal with the public and their own opinions and draw a conclusion about what to feel and what to think. This, of course, is the backdrop for how they live their lives during a time of conflict. Both offer challenges to telling a war story, but not because of who is telling it. Rather, because, a true war story can be found in the skill of telling one, not in the actual experience. O’Brien adds:
In the end, of course, a true war story is never about war. It’s about 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 sisters who never write back and people who never listen.
Literature is beautiful because it doesn’t matter who lives the experience, anyone can tell it. An outsider who simply researched the topic can write some of the greatest fiction. The rite of passage for telling a true war story is emotion, or the lack thereof. It’s the willingness to write about things people don’t usually prefer to speak about. It’s adding faces and names to death and inhumanity. Who then tells the best war stories? The answer is simple: Everyone and no one at the same time. Like Tim O’Brien explained, the true war story isn’t about the war, but about the memory of the war.
Jonathan Pride is a senior who majors in political science and minors in English. He is a member of Sigma Tau Delta and this semester has served as an editor for Work Sighted as part of a directed study. Upon graduation he will become an intelligence officer with the United States Army.
