American - Author | October 1, 1946 -
For me, at least, Vietnam was partly love. With each step, each light-year of a second, a foot soldier is always almost dead, or so it feels, and in such circumstances, you can't help but love.
Tim O'Brien
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In a war without aim, you tend not to aim. You close your eyes, close your heart. The consequences become hit or miss in the most literal sense.
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Vietnam was the defining event for my generation. It spilled over into all facets of American life - into music, into the pulpits, in churches of our country. It spilled over into the city streets, police forces. And even if you were born late in the generation, Vietnam was still part of your childhood.
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I've been surprised by Austin. I had a cowboy image of the place. It's a pretty sophisticated city - in some ways, more sophisticated than Boston. And there's a lighter feel to the place. It's very good for my spirits.
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'The Things They Carried' is labeled right inside the book as a work of fiction, but I did set out when I wrote the book to make it feel real... I use my own name, and I dedicated the book to characters in the book to give it the form of a war memoir.
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Why do fairy tales exist, and why do movies exist? Why do novels exist? There has to be a reason for it; otherwise, none of these things would be there.
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Most of the things in 'The Things They Carried' didn't happen to me. Ninety-five percent of it's invented. It's not what occurred.
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I grew up with the Gene Kelly look at war. The cheerful kind of stories you tell about a horrendous war.
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We tend to regard history as true and 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' as untrue. That's always puzzled me.
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I hated the draft, but at the same time, it's something that made every American take war seriously.
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What do you do when you get a draft notice and you think a war is wrong? And I struggled with that for months prior to my being inducted into the army, and I'm still struggling with it, 40 years later.
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If you stop loving someone, did you ever love them? If you say you're committed and later you're not committed, well, was the first thing commitment? You see what I mean? This kind of thing has always interested me.
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