Contemplating Truth

As a human, it is impossible to know the entirety of a truth. Due to stress, experience, or position, we are extremely biased in what we determine to be honest. Tim O’brien questions this topic very thoroughly through his works including his book Going After Cacciato. Based on the high stress levels and split seconds made by anybody in a war zone, nobody can be completely sure of what truly happened or what was simply a false truth.

Going After Cacciato and excerpts from How to Tell a True War Story show Tim O’Brien’s differing truths of a story. During both of these writings, O’Brien questions the existence and the true story behind the killing of a water buffalo during the Vietnam War. In each piece, he shares a variation of a story, displaying that you cannot ever determine the “true” and actual story. He displays this in Going After Cacciato when he writes “It was a graceful, expansive country. To the north, barely visible even with the field glasses, a river ran down from the hills and wound off into a flat meadow filled with wildflowers. [...] It happened instantly. There was a short, high squeal, then a shout. Stink fired. [...] A pair of old water buffalo stood at the center of the clearing, both yoked up to a large slat-cart. Stink fired without aiming. It was automatic. It was Quick Kill. Point-blank rifle jerking. The first shots struck the closest animal in the belly. the next burst caught the buffalo in the head, and it dropped. [...] He (Paul Berlin) was smiling.” (p.50) Tim O’Brien shares this story to show the truth behind one group of soldiers. Through this story, O’Brien makes it evident that Stink acted against the trauma that he was experiencing through his fast decision to shoot. This can be inferred because it displays that he did not feel safe in his environment nor was he able to control his impulse to shoot.

O’Brien published a very similar story in How to Tell a True War Story. In this work, he shares another variation of a ‘true’ story when he writes “Later, higher in the mountains, we came across a baby VC water buffalo. What it was doing there I don't know - no farms, no paddies - but we chased it down and, got a rope around it and led it along to a deserted village where we set up for the night. After supper Rat Kiley went over and stroked its nose. [...] The animal did not make a sound. It went down hard, then got up again, and Rat took careful aim and shot off an ear. He shot it in the hindquarters and in the little hump at its back. He shot it twice in the flanks. It wasn't to kill; it was to hurt. Rat Kiley was crying. He tried to say something, but then cradled his rifle and went off by himself.” This second story is completely different than the story he told in Going After Cacciato. Rather than acting through fear, Rat Kiley acted out to display his emotions. Rather than speaking through the trauma he was experiences in war, he represented his sadness and disparity by acting out of social context and killing a helpless water buffalo, a defense mechanism known as displacement.

    Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense during Vietnam shares similar thoughts on truth as Tim O’Brien does. During the documentary The Fog of War, McNamara poses the controversial statement about wrongful truths when he tells a story about a torpedo attack believed to be true by shipmen. An outside source summarizes this story when they write “While there was some doubt in Washington regarding the second attack, those aboard Maddox and Turner Joy were convinced that it had occurred. This along with flawed signals intelligence from the National Security Agency led Johnson to order retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnam. [...] Subsequent research and declassified documents has essentially shown that the second attack did not happen. This was reinforced by statements by retired Vietnamese Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap who admitted to the August 2 attack, but denied ordering another two days later.” After telling a variation of this story, McNamara suggests that under his interpretation formed by the knowledge given to him, decisions made executive by him regarding the US Military were made under the assumption that the torpedo attack did happen. He goes on to say “We had in our minds, a mindset that led us to action at a high cost. [...] We see only half of the story, we see what we believe. Belief and seeing are most often wrong.”

War plays a tricky role in what is perceived, and what is actually true. This is due to war’s impact on one’s psyche caused by the trauma formed from high risk situations. From both Going After Cacciato and How to Tell a True War Story, the trauma of multiple years of war are represented in the variations of the experience. Although the stories had differences, they both represented a man acting in a form of defense. The same went for the Gulf of Tonkin experience for the shipmen, these defense mechanisms are formed from the trauma that war inscribes on its victims. Trauma causes the truth to be altered and different for each individual.