This excerpt started off with a very frantic, casual dialogue-type delivery. It threw me off almost immediately, and reminded me of a rant fit for a character in a Scorsese or Tarantino movie. Then the opening paragraphs were revealed to be mostly made up of a letter written by a second author, and the contrast in styles became very apparent. Tim O'Brien's delivery is a very calculated and heavy handed. As the piece unfolds, it weaves in and out of different war stories and what about them is or is not important or true. All of these different war stories keep leading back to the one mentioned in the opening letter segment.
I really started to become immersed in this narrative when the author tells the story of the men who must crouch quietly in the mountains and do nothing but listen for signs of the enemy. When the men start to hear the strange party noises and music, the story started to reveal itself cinematically in my head. I could see the character telling the story, and I could feel where the director might cut away and show visions of these fantastical things happening. This war story really played with the concepts of truth and reality. Was some of this story or any of this story true? Did it matter? What was the moral of this story? Is that even important? Whether the story was true or not, or just exaggerated, doesn't take away from the power of the story. If the story did truly take place, could the silence in a man's own head be enough to evoke all of these fantastic ideas? Sure, why not.
As far as moral issues go, the most obvious cross of the line might be seen in the slaughter of the buffalo. It was a gruesome telling of the actions. Was it necessary to murder an innocent animal? Absolutely not. Does it matter, though? His friend was murdered. Was that necessary? Morals in war seem to have a very different connotation than the morals that are instilled in us as children. When war is declared, the rules change. The lines begin to blur.
War is hell...or is it?
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