![]() The book details his personal experience in the Vietnam War. In 1973 O'Brien published his first book, a memoir entitled, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home. He worked for the Washington Post first as an intern and later as a reporter from 1971 to 1974. He then attended graduate school at Harvard University. ![]() In his writings, O'Brien constantly questions the morality of war.Īfter Vietnam, O'Brien returned to the United States and was presented with a Purple Heart medal for his injuries in the war (grenade shrapnel to his hand). O'Brien was not a supporter of the war, but he reluctantly fought for his country when drafted. Much of the American population also believed America's involvement to be unjust. The Korean War had recently ended, while the Cold War was underway, with many Americans fearing nuclear aggression from the Soviet Union. The war was highly unpopular throughout America as World War II. forces joined the war to stop communism from spreading. The first United States Marines landed in Da Nang on March 8, 1965, marking the start of America's direct presence in the war. It pitted the communist government in North Vietnam against the government of South Vietnam and its American allies. The Vietnam War lasted from 1955 to 1975. He hoped that more people would realize the impact of war through his writing. He has been called America's "poet laureate of war," but he firmly believes that war is not always a necessary thing. Although he is a veteran, his books are anti-war. It is important to note that O'Brien was opposed to the Vietnam War, and during training, he planned to go AWOL to Canada. ![]() O'Brien's identity as a war author centers around his personal experience as a soldier in the Vietnam War, unsplash He reflects on the massacre and the trauma that it inflicted in his 1994 novel In the Lake of the Woods. Although O'Brien wasn't involved in the army at that point, the event impacted his identity as a Vietnam veteran significantly. Unarmed Vietnam civilians, including men, women, and children, were brutalized and murdered in the massacre. The year before O'Brien was drafted into the war, a platoon from this unit perpetrated the My Lai Massacre. O'Brien served in the 23rd Infantry Division, also known as the Americal Division. Directly after college, however, O'Brien was drafted into the Vietnam War, and he served in the United States Army for two years. ![]() O'Brien attended Macalester College, graduating with a bachelor‘s degree in Political Science in 1968. He grew up in Worthington, Minnesota, which so deeply affected his sense of place that it became the setting for many of his short stories in The Things They Carried (1990). William Timothy O'Brien was born on October 1, 1946, in Minnesota. Although his books and short stories are works of fiction, his characters are directly influenced by the horrors he witnessed in the Vietnam War. I would be mad not to tell the stories I know.”¹ O'Brien's career as a writer centers around recounting his personal experience as a soldier in a war. ![]() Our unit lost a lot of guys around My Lai, but the stories they told stay around after them. In Vietnam, men were constantly telling one another stories about the war. "The harder the situation, the more essential it is. “Storytelling is the essential human activity," said American novelist and Vietnam veteran Tim O'Brien. ![]()
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