A war story is something that is very rarely told. Of course you have to have been in a war or apart of a war to be able to say you have a war story to tell. Notice, I said to be able to say you have a war story to tell. There are some war stories that are true, and some that aren't. In any war story, but especially a true one, it's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. "What seems to happen becomes it's own happening and has to be told that way." In other words, what you saw seemed so unrealistic, that when you tell it to someone, you find yourself filling in the blanks, or making up things. For example, "The angles of vision are skewed. When a booby trap explodes, you close your eyes and duck and float outside yourself(71)." Another example of when someone dies, you look away and then look back for a moment and then look away again. " The pictures get jumbled; you tend to miss a lot." When you go back to tell the story to someone, there is always that feeling that something seems unreal, which makes the story seem untrue, but in fact represent the hard and exact truth as it seemed. In many cases, a war story cannot be believed. If you do, decide to believe it be skeptical about it, in other words, try not to believe the entire story. "sometimes it's just beyond telling(71)." "War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead(80)." The truths are contradictory. It can be argued, for instance that war is grotesque(80)." In order to tell or write a true war story, you sort of have to include, or mention all of the things that I've written. A war story can be true, and it can't be true. It all depends on what part of the story you feel is real.
