When young men go off to war they are exposed to horrors that make them lose their innocence very quickly. For instance, my grandfather was only a 19-year-old soldier when his plane was shot down in Japan during War World II. He was taken to a Japanese prison camp and subjected to mental and physical atrocities. In Tim O’Brien’s short story collection, The Things They Carried, the author narrates the ugly truth about the Vietnam War and the affects it has on soldiers. Tim conveys the horrors war brings about for these young innocent soldiers. These soldiers are forced to lose their innocence at such a young age in order to cope with the demands of war. The ugly truth about war is that soldiers who go off to fight in war lose their innocence, and are challenged to cope with obstacles that they are faced with.

The ugly truth about war is that soldiers got their futures taken away when they went to the Vietnam War. There are innocent soldiers in Vietnam that were killed all the time. All soldiers that kill men still have their humanity to deal with. In The Man I Killed, Tim describes the man he killed as "slim, [...] dainty young man[...] a scholar, maybe [...]" with "the wrists of a child." (124). Tim O'Brien is limning in great detail the young Vietnamese man he killed. The elaborate description of the young and childlike soldier exemplified an image of an innocent man. As Tim O'Brien writes, " he was a citizen and a soldier. [...] frightened [...] not a fighter. […] could not picture himself doing the brave things[...]"(125). The man he killed and is characterizing is like Tim O'Brien, describing how the young dead man could have been a scholar and had a potential future before being sent to Vietnam. He is overthinking all of these aspects of this dead man's life. This man’s past and the unseen future of possibilities for this now dead young man. Tim sees this dead man as a human with a family and a future, not as an inessential object. These young innocent soldiers are ill-equipped to deal with what war demands of them.

Similarly to, The Man I Killed, How to Tell a True War Story, also conveys the ugly truth that soldiers can't cope with the horrors they see and ultimately get their innocence taken away.  Rat Kiley is trying to cope with his pain like many other Vietnam soldiers are trying to do. Rat just watched his best friend in the whole world get blown up. When he tries to write a personal letter to the dead soldier's sister about how the man was a great soldier and friend, he feels abandoned because he explained his deepest feelings and pain to this girl and she didn't even have the courtesy to write back. Rat takes out his anger and pain on the baby water buffalo not, "[…]to kill; it was to hurt"(79). Rat Kiley wanted someone or something to feel how he was feeling, to feel the pain. As Rat Kiley shot at the baby water buffalo, "shot away chunks of meat [...] shot randomly almost casually” the baby buffalo “fell hard and tried to get up, [...] couldn't quite make it"(79). Once Rat shot the baby water buffalo enough times that it couldn't get up anymore, he cried and went off to be alone. When soldiers lose their innocence in a place like Vietnam, they begin to hurt other things to cope. The baby buffalo symbolizes innocence and once Rat annihilated it, it shows the loss of innocence. Rat just had lost his innocence, as well as all the other soldiers that go off to Vietnam. 

Tim O'Brien's collection of short stories help me to further respect the depth of the experiences soldiers endured. My grandfather appears simple and happy. However, after completing these revealing short stories, I wanted to uncover how my grandfather has the fortitude to cope with his experiences so humbly. This man that plays golf every day, most times with Japanese men: my grandfather respects all golfers regardless of their nationality, despite his brutal beatings by the Japanese during the war. His most memorable line he has told me is, “They were just doing their job.” In spite of the loss of his innocence at a young age and forever coping with the unspeakable inhumanities, my grandfather has found a strong mechanism…FORGIVENESS.