Curt Lemon dies in Vietnam as “he took a peculiar half step, moving from shade into bright sunlight, and the booby-trapped 105 round blew him into a tree”- there’s no other reason why he dies, there’s no message to glean (O’Brien 79). According to the “How to Tell a True War Story” chapter of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, a true war story is amoral, sickening, beautiful, and seemingly infinite. “The Soldier” by Rupert Brooke claims to be a war story, despite failing to reach most of O’Brien’s qualifiers. However, its companion piece, “The Mother” by May Herschel-Clark, comes much closer to fitting O’Brien’s definitions, but ultimately still falls short.
Immediately, Brooke’s “The Soldier” has no dark or sickening tones, nothing…