¨Where have you gone, Billy Boy, Billy Boy, oh, where have you gone, charming Billy? I have gone to seek a wife, she's the joy of my life, but she's a young thing and cannot leave her mother¨ (O'Brien 199).Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy, whitten by Tim O'Brien, takes place in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. In the Vietnam war men were frightened, but they tried not to act like it, but when Billy Boy Watkins gets his foot blown up by a mine and panics so badly that he has a heart attack and dies it's easy to see that the war isn't what kills you, it's fear. O'Brien uses literary elements such as theme, irony, and characterization to develop the theme. One strategy that O'Brien uses is irony. One ironic thing that happened is Billy boy
