The Unexplainable Nature of Things

In "How to Tell a True War Story" Tim O’Brien sets forth parameters to describe a War Story. In doing so, he explains that in a "true war story" the actual facts of the story matters little. What is important is the idea that the story is trying to communicate. However, Tim O’Brien also comments on the futility of trying to find a point behind a true war story. "Often in a true war story there is not even a point, or else the point doesn’t hit you until twenty years later, in your sleep, and you wake up and shake your wife and start telling the story to her, except when you get to the end you’ve forgotten the point again."(Tim O’Brien). So if in a "true war story" there is no point and the facts where fabricated what is the reason in telling a "true war story"? It does not aim to entertain or impress due to the sullen nature of the topic. So what is the purpose?

I believe the reason behind the telling of a true war story is for the orator to make his experience understandable for a wide variety of audiences. This conclusion is rather obvious yet I still think it is interesting. The fact that soldiers have to make up details to describe the truth is telling about the nature of war. War is unexplainable. Much like the ideal of love, any attempt of assigning it a definition will fall short of the mark. So, when Mitchell Sanders attempts to describe his 6 man patrol mission into the mountains, he relies upon events that did not actually occur. The group of men did not hear an opera or a glee club yet they heard something. They heard something unexplainable.