His name was Bob Kiley, but everybody called him Rat. "Right." Almost everything is true. Rat shot it in the nose. Rat pours his heart out. "I know that." "Amazing," Dave Jensen kept saying. "Around dawn things finally get quiet. So what happens is, these guys get themselves deep in the bush, all camouflaged up, and they lie down and wait and that's all they do, nothing else, they lie there for seven straight days and just listen. All the while the baby buffalo was silent, or almost silent, just a light bubbling sound where the nose had been. And in the end, really, there's nothing much to say about a true war story, except maybe "Oh." ocktail party somewhere out there in the fog. "No, go ahead." For all its horror, you can't help but gape at the awful majesty of combat. Your girlfriend. Find new stories to tell. "You won't. All they do is listen." 100. Rat went to automatic. We had witnessed something essential, something brand-new and profound, a piece of the world so startling there was not yet a name for it. How long does Rat wait to get a response to his letter. To generalize about war is like generalizing about peace. Quotes "It wasn't a war story. Often in a true war story there is not even a point, or else the point doesn't hit you until twenty years later, in your sleep, and you wake up and shake your wife and start telling the story to her, except when you get to the end you've forgotten the point again. Rat mails the letter. He carries the responsibility to ease pain and fears of death. Can't even talk to each other except maybe in whispers, all hush-hush, and that just revs up the willies. Thing is, though, they can't report music. No vines or moss or white blossoms. Rat's letter talks about her … A war story is never_____ What is Moral. You can't extract the meaning without unraveling the deeper meaning. The sounds carry forever. My girlfriend. Tags: Question 40 . He says the guy was his best friend in the world. It all happened. A friend of his gets killed, so about a week later Rat sits down and writes a letter to the guy’s sister. In other cases you can't even tell a true war story. It's astonishing. Right away, Lemon and Rat Kiley started goofing. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty. In "How to Tell a True War Story," Rat Kiley thinks of "a gore of about twenty zillion dead gook fish" as the "the funniest thing in world history" (O’Brien, 65). The Native American soldier character in The Things They Carried, he is Tim O'Brien's best friend and serves as a calming influence in Alpha Company. Mitchell Sanders sat flipping his yo-yo. The rock—it's talking. Somebody kicked the baby buffalo. And the whole time, in the background, there's still that cocktail party going on. After supper Rat Kiley went over and stroked its nose. He bent forward and whispered something, as if talking to a pet, then he shot it in the throat. "Amazing," Dave Jensen said. In The Things They Carried, Kiowa teaches a rain dance to Rat Kiley and Dave Jensen. Again the animal fell hard and tried to get up, but this time it couldn't quite make it. Not a single sound, except they still hear it. Garden of Evil. The pictures get jumbled; you tend to miss a lot. The keywords here are ‘hurt’ and ‘pain’ – the memory of dead Curt is for Rat … You can't tell where you are, or why you're there, and the only certainty is overwhelming ambiguity. Twenty years later, I can still see the sunlight on Lemon's face. It's about sisters who never write back and people who never listen. Norman Bowker and Kiowa and Dave Jensen were dozing, or half dozing, and all around us were those ragged green mountain. This is Nam. Later in the week he would write a long personal letter to the guy’s sister, who would not write back, but for now it was a question of pain. His face was suddenly brown and shining. He says he loved the guy. If you believe it, be skeptical. It commands you. The medic of Alpha Company. He teaches "O'Brien" the power of the story. ", We're talking regulation, by-the-book LP. The trees talk politics, the monkeys talk religion. A summary of Part X (Section5) in Tim O’Brien's The Things They Carried. It was sad to read that he died the way he did while he was in the middle of having fun with his best friend, Rat Kiley. Need Custom Character Analysis Sample With Quotes or Maybe Help With Editing? For a time no one spoke. It comes down to gut instinct. He shot away chunks of meat below the ribs. her brother made the war seem almost fun, Probably the funniest thing in world history, On Halloween, this real hot spooky night, the dude paints up his body all different colors and puts on this weird mask and hikes over to a ville and goes trick-or-treating almost stark naked. When a guy dies, like Curt Lemon, you look away and then look back for a moment and then look away again. They make those mountains burn. For example: Four guys go down a trail. The frustrations of being a soldier in Vietnam and fighting at times for a cause that has no apparent solution causes the men to have questionable judgment. I never seen it before." These six guys, they don't say boo for a solid week. Use this CliffsNotes The Things They Carried Study Guide today to ace your next test! His name was Bob Kiley but everybody called him Rat. Perfect for acing essays, tests, and quizzes, as well as for writing lesson plans. None of it happened. All these different voices. It wasn't to kill; it was to hurt. Kiowa is Native American, and known for carrying around a copy of the New Testament with him in his rucksack. And I remember sitting at my foxhole that night, watching the shadows of Quang Ngai, thinking about the coming day and how we would cross the river and march west into the mountains, all the ways I might die, all the things I did not understand. Sometimes it's just beyond telling. It's not pretty, exactly. At the hour of dusk you sit at your foxhole and look out on a wide river turning pinkish red, and at the mountains beyond, and although in the morning you must cross the river and go into the mountains and do terrible things and maybe die, even so, you find yourself studying the fine colors on the river, you feel wonder and awe at the setting of the sun, and you are filled with a hard, aching love for how the world could be and always should be, but now is not. As a moral declaration the old truism seems perfectly true, and yet because it abstracts, because it generalizes, I can't believe it with my stomach. You can tell a true war story by the way it never seems to end. That's a true story that never happened. Curt Lemon was dead. "A six-man patrol goes up into the mountains on a basic listening-post operation. "God's truth," Mitchell Sanders said. and the jumper says, "Story of my life, man," and the other guy starts to smile but he's dead. I had a buddy in Vietnam. "Last night, man, I had to make up a few things.". Beginning to end, you tell her, it's all made up. It's hard to tell you what happened next. He shot it twice in the flanks. Click to see full answer. And then again, in the morning, Sanders came up to me. Rat Kiley. Rat Kiley is the prototypical storyteller, always relating something that happened somewhere else. In many cases a true war story cannot be believed. This event produces the question, why was Rat the only one who couldn’t deal with Curt’s death or at least keep his sanity after his death. Even now, at this instant, I remember that yo-yo. No trail junction. He says he loved the guy. It wasn't to kill; it was to hurt. It's about sorrow. What I should do, she'll say, is put it all behind me. I write this beautiful fuckin' letter, I slave over it. 100. What color eyes were the baby buffalo's. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. Scorch time. I've told it before—many times, many versions. And if nobody chickened out, the grenade would make a light popping sound and they'd be covered with smoke and they'd laugh and dance around and then do it again. He put the rifle muzzle up against the mouth and shot the mouth away. And the fog, too, and the grass and the goddamn mongooses. All night long, they just smoke those mountains. This is true. He shot away chunks of meat below the ribs” (O’Brien 75) and later says, “Rat Kiley was crying. He dies under heavy mortar fire and is buried under what the platoon calls a "shit field." "A new wrinkle. Then he tells a few stories to make the point, her brother would always volunteer for stuff nobody else would volunteer for in a million years, dangerous stuff. 100. The sister never writes back. The platoon was preparing to move out, checking weapons, going through all the little rituals that preceded a day's march. It talks. It was a rigged 105 round. It wouldn't go down. It wasn't a war story. Not then, not ever. The angles of vision are skewed. Everybody's sweet little virgin girlfriend. The occasion was right for a good story. They can't do that. Though it's odd, you're never more alive than when you're almost dead. They make those mountains burn. he must've thought it was the sunlight that was killing him. He shot away chunks of meat below the ribs. Nothing turns inside. he said. Listen to Rat Kiley. Not once." They were kids; they just didn't know. What'd they hear? Dave Jensen. He served as a health care worker, who provided emergency care at the stage of rehabilitation. Rat Kiley had lost his best friend in the world. Often in a true war story there is not even a point. "Forget it, I understand." They were in the deep jungle, and Rat and Curt were playing catch with smoke grenades. Kiley previously served in the mountains of Chu Lai, the setting of “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong.” O’Brien has great respect for Kiley’s medical prowess, especially when he is shot for the second time and is subjected to the mistreatment of another medic, Bobby Jorgenson. Rat Kiley loved Curt Lemon, he considered him to be his family. Often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn't, because the normal stuff is necessary to make you believe the truly incredible craziness. At one point, I remember, Mitchell Sanders turned and looked at me, not quite nodding, as if to warn me about something, as if he already knew, then after a while he rolled up his yo-yo and moved away. The answer matters. A friend of his gets killed, s o about a week later Rat sits down and writes a letter to the guy's sister. He says cooze. Listen to Rat: "Jesus Christ, man, I write this beautiful fuckin' letter, I slave over it, and what happens? I heard this one, for example, from Mitchell Sanders. I suppose, which must've been the detonator, so I glanced behind me and watched Lemon step from the shade into bright sunlight. It's about love and memory. Like a killer forest fire, like cancer under a microscope, any battle or bombing raid or artillery barrage has the aesthetic purity of absolute moral indifference—a powerful, implacable beauty—and a true war story will tell the truth about this, though the truth is ugly. You stare out at tracer rounds unwinding through the dark like brilliant red ribbons. Cooze, he says. The whole platoon stood there watching, feeling all kinds of things, but there wasn't a great deal of pity for the baby water buffalo. I'll picture Rat Kiley's face, his grief, and I'll think, You dumb cooze. It's all fire. There is no virtue. Again there was some silence as Mitchell Sanders looked out on the river. Those six guys, they heard wicked sound out there. 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 the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. I was known for my sense of humor, bravery, and kindness. Pretty nutso sometimes, but you could trust him with your life. It's about sunlight. The game involved smoke grenades, which were harmless unless you did stupid things, and what they did was pull out the pin and stand a few feet apart and play catch under the shade of those huge trees. ", "I got a confession to make," Sanders said. Not human voices, though. Because every word is absolutely dead-on true.". He carries the responsibility to ease pain and fears of death. Then they salute the fucker and walk away, because certain stories you don't ever tell." If you don't care for obscenity, you don't care for the truth; if you don't care for the truth, watch how you vote. Weird echoes and stuff. The deeply religious and (atypically for Alpha Company) scrupulous Kiowa was uneasy about going in, believing that it was sacrilegious for the men to enter such a holy place. It's crazy, I know, but they hear the champagne corks. He carries comic books, brandy, and M&Ms. ", The dark was coming on hard now, and off to the west I could see the mountains rising in silhouette, "You won't. Rat Kiley snatched comics. War is nasty; war is fun. Pretty nutso sometimes, but you could trust him with your life. What is a cooze. It talks. Like at a cocktail party. Rat Kiley had lost his best friend in the world”(78-79). They don't got tongues. The vapors, man. And then afterward, when you go to tell about it, there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed. SURVEY . Nobody hears nothin'. I remember how peaceful the twilight was. He carried comics and M & Ms with him. He shot off the tail. Bob “Rat” Kiley carried a cloth pack with morphine, plasma, malaria pills, surgical lotions and other medical equipment, including comic books and chocolate for the seriously wounded, to only twenty pounds. Everything swirls. "We're talking regulation, by-the-book LP. War is nasty; war is fun. Mitchell Sanders sat flipping his yo-yo. The dumb cooze never writes back." Then he reloaded, squatted down, and shot it in the left front knee. Naturally they get nervous. Again the animal fell hard and tried to get up, but this time it couldn't quite make it. Not human voices, though. Later in the week he would write to the guy's sister, who would not write back, but for now it … As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way. I've told it before—many times, many versions—but here's what actually happened. It's about sisters who never write back and people who never listen. They didn't understand about the spookiness. wacked-out music. Nam—it truly talks. In a way, I suppose, you had to be there, you had to hear it, but I could tell how desperately Sanders wanted me to believe him, his frustration at not quite getting the details right, not quite pinning down the final and definitive truth. He says cooze. The rest of us stood in a ragged circle around the baby buffalo. Rat Kiley tortured it. They've got a radio along, so if they hear anything suspicious—anything—they're supposed to call in artillery or gunships, whatever it takes. Over here, man, every sin's real fresh and original. They do not indulge in abstraction or analysis. A real soldier's soldier, Rat says. He tells the guy's sister he'll look her up when the war's over. "I got a confession to make," Sanders said. In any war story, but especially a true one, it's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. Two months pass, and the sister never writes back. A young man who frequently attempts to assume the role as a tough soldier. Kiley had just lost his best friend, O’Brien explains, to help justify the story. The vapors, man. I had a buddy in Vietnam. The trees were thick; it took nearly an hour to cut an LZ for the dustoff. They call in air strikes. On the third day, Curt Lemon stepped on a booby-trapped 105 round. He knew how to have a good time. What they need is to go out on LP. as if to say he didn't care if I believed him or not. They were like soul mates, he says, like twins or something, they had a whole lot in common. War makes you a man; war makes you dead. Rat Kiley had lost his best friend in the world. Probably the funniest thing in world history, Rat says, all that gore, about twenty zillion dead gook fish. Already the lead squad had crossed the river and was filing off toward the west. Rat Kiley and Curt Lemon In 'How to Tell a True War Story', O'Brien describes how Rat's best friend, Curt Lemon, died after stepping on a booby-trapped round. Rat tells her what a great brother she had, how strack the guy was, a number one pal and comrade. Almost nothing is true. It lay very still. Rat Kiley had lost his best friend in the world. Almost everything is true. He gets all teary telling about the good times they had together, how her brother made the war seem almost fun, always raising hell and lighting up villes and bringing smoke to bear every which way. Another guy almost flips. This one does it for me. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. A nature hike, they thought, not even a war, so they went off into the shade of some giant trees—quadruple canopy, no sunlight at all—and they were giggling and calling each other yellow mother and playing a silly game they'd invented. Lemmon's best friend. Stainless steel balls, Rat tells her. All ears." Everybody's sweet little virgin girlfriend. They can't get on the horn and call back to base and say, 'Hey, listen, we need some firepower, we got to blow away this weirdo gook rock band.' A nature hike, they thought, not even a war. After a firefight, there is always the immense pleasure of aliveness. Rat Kiley comes to accept the death of his best friend Kurt Lemon, killing a buffalo child, and they can no longer accept the war and shoots himself in the foot. You can tell a true war story by the questions you ask. "Not hardly. The place talks. And man, I'll tell you—it's spooky, This is mountains. , there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed. You hear stuff nobody should overhear." Everyone called him rat-real name was bob. All ears. Rat went to automatic. Then he tells a few stories to make the point, how her brother would always volunteer for stuff nobody else would volunteer for in a million years, dangerous stuff, like doing recon or going out on these really badass night patrols. "Probably not," I said. Lemon dies after setting off a rigged artillery shell. What happened was, we crossed a muddy river and marched west into the mountains, and on the third day we took a break along a trail junction in deep jungle. and if the answer matters, you've got your answer. Listen to Rat Kiley. Later in the week he would write a long personal leter to the guy’s sister, who would not write back, but for now it was a question of pain. Everything talks. Follow me? It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. It's about the special way that dawn spreads out on a river when you know you must cross the river. When Rat Kiley's best friend was killed in the war, he became so angry. It was near dusk and we were sitting at my foxhole along a wide muddy river north of Quang Ngai. Though being levelheaded and kind, Kiley eventually succumbs to the stresses of the war and his role in it—he purposely blows off his toe, so that he is forced to leave his post. He was playing with his yo-yo, dancing it with short, tight little strokes of the wrist. After a firefight, there is always the immense pleasure of aliveness. For the common soldier, at least, war has the feel—the spiritual texture—of a great ghostly fog, thick and permanent. Sharp gray eyes, lean and narrow-waisted, and when he died it was almost beautiful, the way the sunlight came around him and lifted him up and sucked him high into a tree full of moss and vines and white blossoms. So what happens is, these guys get themselves deep in the bush, all camouflaged up, and they lie down and wait and that's all they do, nothing else, they lie there for seven straight days and just listen. 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 the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. Right spills over into wrong. What is Rat Kiley. Like you don't even have a body. Mitchell Sanders was right. Mitchell Sanders and Kathleen. Lemon and Rat Kiley started goofing. I knew what was coming. A grenade sails out. Then after a while they hear gook opera and a glee club and the Haiphong Boys Choir and a barbershop quartet and all kinds of weird chanting and Buddha-Buddha stuff. His name was Bob Kiley, but everybody called him Rat. Rat mails the letter. He tried to say something, but then cradled his rifle and went off by himself. I still remember that trail junction and those giant trees and a soft dripping sound somewhere beyond the trees, Up in the canopy there were tiny white blossoms, but no sunlight at all, Curt Lemon and Rat Kiley were playing catch, with smoke grenades. Rat Kiley had lost his best friend in the world. Rat shot it in the nose. The man's ragged out, he gets down tight on their case. Jungle, sort of, except it's way up in the clouds and there's always this fog—like rain, except it's not raining—everything's all wet and swirly and tangled up and you can't see jack, you can't find your own pecker to piss with. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way. Often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn't, because the normal stuff is necessary to make you believe the truly incredible craziness. He waits two months. At one point, I remember, Mitchell Sanders turned and looked at me, not quite nodding, as if to warn me about something, as if he already knew, then after a while he rolled up his yo-yo and moved away. The place talks. He shot away chunks of meat below the ribs. But in truth war is also beauty. Late in the night Mitchell Sanders touched my shoulder. Weird echoes and stuff. It's about love and memory. The war's over. Understand? It's hard to tell you what happened next. Azar and Kiowa. A grenade sails out. Order blends into chaos, love into hate, ugliness into beauty, law into anarchy, civility into savagery. Every goddamn detail—the mountains and the river and especially that poor dumb baby buffalo. Usually it's an older woman of kindly temperament and humane politics. He's nineteen years old—it's too much for him, so he looks at you with those big sad gentle killer eyes and says cooze, his friend is dead, and because it's so incredibly sad. Real hoity-toity, all very civilized, except this isn't civilization. And in the end, really, there's nothing much to say about a true war story, except maybe "Oh.". The trees talk politics, the monkeys talk religion. He shot it in all the places in its body where a wound would not be fatal. Later in the week he would write a long personal letter to the guy’s sister, who would never write back, but for now it was a question of pain” (73). For example: War is hell. All around us there was the smell of smoke and filth and deep greenery, and the evening was humid and very hot. I won't say it but I'll think it. He shot off the tail. The dumb cooze never writes back. "Last night, man, I had to make up a few things." At its core, perhaps, war is just another name for death, and yet any soldier will tell you, if he tells the truth, that proximity to death brings with it a corresponding proximity to life. A great sense of humor, too. But then Tim hears a noise and turns to look. It's all fire. Anyway, it's a terrific letter, very personal and touching. I can see him turning, looking back at Rat Kiley, then he laughed and took that curious half step from shade into sunlight, his face suddenly brown and shining, and when his foot touched down, in that instant, he must've thought it was the sunlight that was killing him. He opened up a can of C rations, pork and beans, but the baby buffalo wasn't interested. And if nobody chickened out, the grenade would make a light popping sound and they'd be covered with smoke and they'd laugh and dance around and then do it again. When a guy dies, like Curt Lemon, you look away and then look back for a moment and then look away again. So they lie there in the fog and keep their mouths shut. They get on the radio and report enemy movement—a whole army, they say—and they order up the firepower. "No opera." His name was Bob Kiley, but everybody called him Rat. Like the time at this river when he went fishing with a whole damn crate of hand grenades. ... Bob "Rat" Kiley. Twenty years later, I can still see the sunlight on Lemon's face. Another guy almost flips. For example, we've all heard this one. Nam—it truly talks. All you can do is tell it one more time, patiently, adding and subtracting, making up a few things to get at the real truth. Understand? Like that fatass colonel. "So they pack up and start humping. Rat goes crazy with grief and tortures and kills a water buffalo. Can't joke it away. He shot off the tail. Vietnam. Linda and Henry Dobbins. A friend of his gets killed, so about a week later Rat sits down and writes a letter to the guy's sister. This one wakes me up. Everything swirls. Absolute occurrence is irrelevant. There is no virtue. Absolute silence. Order blends into chaos, love into hate, ugliness into beauty, law into anarchy, civility into savagery. It wobbled and went down sideways. "My whole life, I never seen anything like it." He shot away chunks of meat below the ribs. "Because it happened. "Invisible. He shot it in the hindquarters and in the little hump at its back. Later he wrote a long personal letter to the guy's sister, who didn’t write back, but for that time, it was a question of pain. Except for the laughter things were quiet. "But the guys don't say zip. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast and saves his three buddies. One guy sticks Juicy Fruit in his ears. As a moral declaration the old truism seems perfectly true, and yet because it abstracts. Sometimes, even, there are little tears. But what wakes me up twenty years later is Dave Jensen singing "Lemon Tree" as we threw down the parts. There was a noise, I suppose, which must've been the detonator, so I glanced behind me and watched Lemon step from the shade into bright sunlight. He shot off the tail. They blow away trees and glee clubs and whatever else there is to blow away. They do not indulge in abstraction or analysis. He gave me a long, tired smile. ", "Invisible. And you know why?" It wouldn't go down. Rat Kiley had lost his best friend in the world. He doesn’t kill the beast because it was dangerous or injured, but because he felt so much emotion and pain after the death of his best friend Curt Lemon. Can't even talk to each other except maybe in whispers, all hush-hush, and that just revs up the willies. I remember pieces of skin and something wet and yellow that must've been the intestines. It can be argued, for instance, that war is grotesque. Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong (Chapter 9). Like you don't even have a body. The parts were just hanging there, so Dave Jensen and I were ordered to shinny up and peel him off. true war story is never about war. The whole country. A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth. A deep pinkish red spilled out on the river, which moved without sound, and in the morning we would cross the river and march west into the mountains. They can't get on the horn and call back to base and say, 'Hey, listen, we need some firepower, we got to blow away this weirdo gook rock band.'. What are Napalm and Agent Orange two examples of? You just go with the vapors—the fog sort of takes you in ... And the sounds, man. Tim O'Brien's best friend in the war. Every goddamn detail—the mountains and the river and especially that poor dumb baby buffalo. Nobody listens. He shot off the tail. You'd feel cheated if it never happened. You can't extract the meaning without unraveling the deeper meaning. You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you. That's what it sounds like, this big swank gook cocktail party somewhere out there in the fog. Get all the lyrics to songs by Tim O'Brien and join the Genius community of music scholars to learn the meaning behind the lyrics. Instant downloads of all 1402 LitChart PDFs (including The Things They Carried). You can't tease it out. "Affirm," he said. painted his body in different colors, wear a mask, and go trick-or treating Even an unreliable storyteller, as Rat is, can still command the attention and belief of his audience because people like hearing his stories. He certainly does not say woman, or girl. You crouch in ambush as a cool, impassive moon rises over the nighttime paddies. Right spills over into wrong. Why all the ordnance? There is no clarity. "Yeah, but listen, it's still true. The vapors suck you in. Absolute silence. But you can't say that. Nobody hears nothin'. When a booby trap explodes, you close your eyes and duck and float outside yourself. As a 19 year old kid thrust into a traumatic war, he was unable to … A handsome kid, really. The dark was coming on hard now, and off to the west I could see the mountains rising in silhouette, all the mysteries and unknowns. 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