This paper analyzes how, through a series of seemingly random war stories regarding his tour in Vietnam, O'Brien attempts
to convey to the reader how sometimes
reality is not everything and how the very emotions we seem to take for granted in the ordinary
world find a special place in a war zone. Throughout the novel, we wonder if O'Brien is telling the unbridled truth, or if it's all a product of his war-torn imagination. In particular, it discusses how the last chapter, a story half about the death of his first love and half about his first mission in Vietnam, finally creates the bridge between the real world and that which we believe to be the real world.