"He lay face-up in the center of the trail, a slim, dead, almost dainty young man"(O'Brien 124).

In this course thus far, we have focused a tremendous amount of energy on distinguishing what is truths from what is lies. What I am proposing, is that it does not matter.

People always say, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", so why can that not also apply to the truth. Everyone views the world differently. Everyone has his or her own opinions, stories, and experiences. Even those experiences that we might go through with someone else are still going to resonate differently with us than with that other person.

In the chapter "How to Tell a True War Story", Tim O'Brien writes, "It comes down to gut instincts. A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe" (O'Brien 78). The way I interpreted that statement, was maybe not in the same way that someone else might have interpreted it. To me, it means that the actual story itself does not have to be completely true. It does not have to site every single quotation or even have actually happened. What makes that story true is if it resonates deep within you. If it hits you hard in the gut and makes you think beyond what you know. It makes you feel compassion, pain, heartbreak, or sickness for whomever it is being told about. 

I do not think I really understood this statement until I read the chapter "The Man I Killed" in which Tim O'Brien is describing in detail not only the physical attributes of this dead enemy soldier, but is also describing details about his actual life. This is the chapter that hit me hard in the gut, that made me feel compassion, pain, heartbreak, and sickness for not only the dead soldier, but also for Tim O'Brien, the character. I felt like I was there, like I was sitting in Tim O'Brien's position staring at this man wondering why and how I just killed him. The reason I think this chapter in particular made me realize that whether or not any of this book is true does not matter, is because those details that made me feel something, that made my "stomach believe" could never have been told if this was not fiction. I would never have been able to know that this dead man, "...was not a fighter"(125) or that, "He hoped in his heart that he would never be tested"(125). I would not be able to feel as connected to the story because the truth is; I have never and probably will never have an experience like this one. The only way I can possibly relate to this experience is through Tim O'Brien's words. So, in that sense it does not matter that the actual details of the story, or the entire story as a whole, did not happen or is not true because it is as close to that feeling as I will ever get. So to me, it is true and in this way that is what I am trying to show.  That truth really is in the eye of the beholder.