Reading for a second time, "How to Tell a True War Story" by Tim O'Brien, I have gain a better understanding of this short essay. O'Brien talks about having a friend in Vietnam who went by the name of Bob Kiley, or better known.. "Rat". Kiley write a beautiful letter to a his friend's sister because he had past away during the war. Kiley tells her what an amazing brother she had and how this guy was a number one pal and comrade among all the men. Telling her how her brother would always volunteer for stuff nobody else had any interest in or were too scared to just do. Stuff like night patrols or doing recon, and also telling her how he was a little crazy, but in a good way. He was the type of man you knew was crazy in the head, but you would absolutely trust with your life.. a tremendous human being. A few lines down in the letter , words start to become very serious. Kiley starts to pour his emotion through his pencil, expressing his true feelings for his friend who died. Writing how he loved him a lot, saying how he was his best friend in the whole world. So, O'Brien goes on to speak about how a true story is never moral.. "It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things man have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from a the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie" (65) I agree a lot with what O'Brien has to say about this short story. I was surprised when reading this story how true it actually was. A lot of what O'Brien has to say through out these few short pages really opened my eyes.