"Enemies"
Why did Jensen break his own nose? Did it "square" things between him and Strunk?
"Friends"
Why did Strunk's death seem "to relieve Dave Jensen of an enormous weight"?
"How To Tell a True War Story"
Can "a true story that never happened" truly exist? Explain.
(Cool quote: "And in the end, really, there's nothing much to say about a true war story, except maybe 'Oh.'")
Jenson breaks his own nose in order to even up things between him and Strunk because he feels that Strunk will seek revenge. In order to hopefully protect himself, Jenson breaks his own nose. Strunk finds it funny and actually admits to taking the knife from Jenson.
ReplyDeleteStrunk's death seemed to relieve Jenson of an enormous weight because the two had agreed that if one was mortally wounded, the other would shoot him. After Strunk had his leg blown off, Jenson wanted to kill him, but Strunk begged not to be killed. It may also make Jenson feel better because he had feared Strunk's revenge for breaking his nose.
A "true story that never happened" can exist, I suppose. However, it can only be true if you believe it in your stomach. O'Brien says that a true war story can never be believed because war is ambiguous. For this reason, O'Brien says that no war story is ever absolutely true. Even after the lady tells him that his stories made her sad, he believes that he has to begin making up more parts of the story in order to make it believable.
<> I really like this line.
DeleteJensen broke his own nose to make things even with Strunk. He noticed how badly him breaking Strunks nose affected Strunk and also how it affected everyone else on the grounds. I believe it did even things up with Strunk.
ReplyDeleteIt relieved Jensen because as bad as he and Strunk didn't get along and how they were working on being friends he didn't want to kill him. They were "even."
I don't believe a true story that never happened can exist because you would be telling a big lie every time you told it. This could possibly occur in your mind but it still never truly would have occurred. Some people's stories may be changed for people to feel more sorrowful or happy but overall it is still a true story but with more feeling. So therefore, I believe that a true story that never happened can't exist.
What if it's a story that is emotionally true, but never literally occurred?
DeleteJenson broke his own nose to make things even between him and Strunk. According to Strunk, it did even things up.
ReplyDeleteStrunk's death lifted a weight off of Jenson because if he would have lived, he would have had to shoot him since that is what they agreed on through the sigining of a document.
In my opinion, a true story that never happened can exist. If the story seems real enough, people can be led to believe that it is actually is real. If it is told believably, even the most ridiculous story can seem real.
And even the most down-to-earth story can be faked, if the opposite is true. :)
DeleteJensen breaks his own nose because he wants things to be even between him and Lee Struck. He is paranoid that something bad will happen to him and eventually he lets it get to him too much and just breaks his nose so Lee won't have to do anything to him to make things "even".
ReplyDeleteJensen and Struck signed a paper that promised if the other were to get a "wheelchair injury", the other would do whatever he could to end it (which basically means put them out of their misery). Jensen is relieved of an enormous weight because he didn't want to kill Struck. Even if they had promised each other they would. He didn't want to be the one to do it. So when Struck died on his way to get help, he felt relief because he wouldn't have to keep his end of the promise.
I don't believe that a "true story that never happened" can truly exist because it doesn't make sense. If it's a true story, but it never happened, it's basically a true story that is a lie.
That's what we call a paradox. I'd argue that there are many true stories that never happened. They are emotionally true. :)
DeleteJensen breaks his nose in order to get even with Struck. If he breaks it himself Struck will have no reason to hurt him again and Struck agrees with that. Struck's death removed an enormous weight because now Jensen won't have to "put an end it to" and put him out of his misery. He didn't want to kill him even though they signed a paper on it. "A true story that never happened" does not really exist in my opinion. It just doesn't make much sense, it either happened, or it didn't.
ReplyDeleteThat is the objective way of looking at it, Lexi. But if a story is emotionally true, does it matter if it's not objectively true?
DeleteJensen broke his own nose because he was scared Lee Strunk would get back at him and hoped that it would even the score. The broken nose didn't make things "square", Strunk stole a knife and Jensen got back by breaking his nose, so things were already even. Jenson was relieved by Strunk's death probably because he didn't kill him and he didn't feel like he failed a promise. Everything in the story, except the actual story, could be real. Although the events in a story may be fictional, the emotions and reactions conveyed are very true. The events in the story can serve just to get the listener to feel what the teller felt at the time.
ReplyDeleteI agree about why Jensen was relieved when he learned that Strunk died. What about the baby water buffalo?
DeleteIn the chapter "Enemies," Jensen breaks his own nose in order to make things even between he and Strunk. In both Strunk's and Jensen's view, this squared things up. It doesn't really matter if you or I think it's fair if Strunk is okay with with it. Later on, in 'friends," Jensen is seemingly relieved by Strunk's death because he no longer has to carry the burden of whether or not he will have to kill one of his now closest friends on the battlefield. Although they both made the pact and both soldiers supposedly want one to sort of euthanize the other if need be, nobody wants to kill a friend, no matter how justified, humane, or how much an injured person wants it. Now that Strunk is dead, Jensen no longer is burdened by that duty. "A true story that never happened" is one paradox that in my mind simply can't exist. The title "true story" implies that the events that occur in the story have actually happened or are thought to have happened. Otherwise, it would be called "fiction" or "fable" or a "myth."
ReplyDeleteBut the very definition of a paradox is something that can't, by definition, exist and yet does anyway. :)
DeleteJensen breaks his own nose so he could make things even with Strunk after he broke his nose in a fight. Jensen feels that things were settled, but to Strunk things were already settled before Jensen broke his nose. When Strunk died it took a weight off Jensen's shoulders because they had a deal that if either one of them ended up in a wheel chair they would kill them. But, Jensen didn't want to do that, so he felt relieved that he didn't have that responsibility. I think that a true story that didn't actually happen can exist to someone. If they have PTSD and they think something happened in the war that never actually happened it is still true to them. It may not be true to everyone else, but they truly believe it.
ReplyDeleteI like your comment about PTSD, Amber. It's one way of explaining how a fictional story could still be true. Good work.
DeleteJensen breaks his own nose to settle the dispute between himself and Strunk. They were fighting over a missing jackknife and Jensen broke Strunk’s nose. Soon Jensen started to become paranoid that Strunk was going to seek revenge. He believed that breaking his own nose “squared” things between them even though it is later revealed that Strunk did take his knife.
ReplyDeleteStrunk’s death seemed to “relieve Dave Jensen of an enormous weight” because he did not want to harm him. After the fight, Jensen and Strunk became friends. They soon made a pact that if one of them got harmed and would be unable to walk, the other would kill him. When Strunk stepped on a rigged mortar round, he lost his right leg and knee. Jensen could not bring himself to kill his friend. When he learned that his friend had died, he felt relieved that Strunk would not have to live his life with only one leg.
I think that “a true story that never happened” can truly exist. When a person returns from a war, they could have invented events that happened in their mind but not in the real world. To them a story could be true but to others, it never happened.
Not to get all metaphysical, but reality itself is an unproven concept. How do I know, for example, that my subjective understanding of the color "red" is the same as your understanding of the same color? :)
DeleteJensen breaks his own nose because he was feeling empathetic for breaking Strunk's nose. He was also fearful that Strunk would get people to kill him for what he had done and the paranoia was "eating him alive." Things were even in Jensen's eyes, but in Strunk's eyes he did not care. He already stole Jensen's knife and just thought Jensen went way out of his way to break his own nose.
ReplyDeleteStrunk's death relieved Jensen a significant amount because now Jensen did not have to contemplate whether he had to kill one of his closest comrades or not because of the agreement that they had previously made with one another. If one was to be injured so severely that they would have to be summoned into a wheelchair, they agreed to kill one another. After Strunk lost his right leg after stepping on a rigged mortar round, I truly believed that Jensen did not want to kill him, but he did not want to see him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, so Strunk's death did relieve Jensen a huge amount.
I believe "a true story that never happened" can exist. Although the story may not be true, the emotions that develop because of the story may be. A story could simply be true to one person and not the other if one person believes that it truly happened and it truly affected them.
Plus, Strunk begged Jensen NOT to kill him, even though this violated the written agreement that the two men had drawn up.
DeleteJensen breaks his own nose to settle things between him and Struck. He was also paranoid about Struck doing something to him even though Struck already thinks everything is already even.
ReplyDeleteStruck's death relieves Jensen of an enormous weight by having him no longer responsible for having to decide whether he will have to kill his own friend because of the pact they made with one another.
A true story that never happened can exist as long as the person reading it believes it is real. This chapter we read is a good example of this. It was very realistic making it seem true until you are told it is truly not. Overall it has to be believable to people.
I agree that Tim O'Brien goes the extra mile(s) to make readers believe that these stories are true. And who's to say that they aren't?
DeleteJensen breaks his nose because he wanted everything to be even and fine with Strunk.
ReplyDeleteStrunk death relieves Jensen because he no longer needs to worry about following through with their deal they made.
I believe "a true story that never happened" cannot exist because if it hasn't happened then there can't be a truth behind it. Meaning it is made up and making things up is not the truth.
Don't you feel the emotions in a story like this one, that exposes the folly and futility of war, can still be "true" even if the events in them never happened in exactly that way to exactly these people? :)
DeleteJensen broke his knows so that him and strunk would be even . Jenson was so pariond that skrunk was going to do something to him, even though Skrunk just stole jenson knive.
ReplyDeleteJensen was relieved when skrunk died because know Jenson did not have to kill his comrade if he is critical wounded,
A true story that never existed could still have a happen , as long as the persons believe it. For instance these stories are realistic in happening, and they are no ways to prove they are not true. So as long as you believe they are true, then they happen.
That's a very liberal view of truth in storytelling, Grant. Can we make a story true by believing in it?
DeleteJensen broke his own nose because he broke Strunk's nose. He thought by breaking his own nose he would make things even between them. I think it did make things right between Jensen and Strunk because they each got the same thing done to them. Shrunk's death relieved Jensen because he didn't want to have to kill Shrunk.
ReplyDeleteIt's a neat seat of stories. You need the second one to complete the first one, even though the first can stand on its own.
DeleteI think Jensen broke his own nose, just because he was still really upset about the whole thing. He didn't understand why that happened so he relived it by breaking his nose again. Strunk's death relieved Jensen because they made a promise to each other that they would kill one another is something like that happened. So it relieved him that he didn't have to kill his friend.
ReplyDeleteBut Jensen told Strunk not to worry about it, that he wasn't going to kill Strunk against his will. Do you think he would have if Strunk had remained with the unit any longer?
DeleteI don't think that a true story that never happened can exist. I think this because when telling a story you have to have specific situations and you also need details to go along with what you're saying.
ReplyDeleteBut can't an author make up specific situations and details and fool us into believing that a story really happened? Isn't lying the job of a fiction writer?
DeleteJensen broke his own nose so that Strunk wouldn't try to get revenge on him. It relieves some tension from the situation and allows the two men to talk to one another. Jensen was relieved by Strunk's death because he wouldn't have to kill him when faced with a fatal wound, like the pact they had made, even though Strunk had already begged him not to kill him after hurting his leg. He also wouldn't be killed by Strunk from a fatal wound. I do believe that a true story that never happened can exist. They exist when someone lies and then others believe it as truth, and the lie goes on for so long that even the liar believes it to be true. A story doesn't actually have to be true for someone to believe it is true, so I guess it depends on the definition of truth. The actual, factual truth, or a story that is widely accepted as truth.
ReplyDeleteIs there a difference, really? Perception is reality, after all.
ReplyDelete