If I lost some passion for literature and writing in high school due to growing up too fast or stifled creativity in the classroom, reading my first O'Brien story ("How to Tell a True War Story," which is included in this book) in a Freshman English class put me back on the straight and true. Taught me what stories can mean for us.

The stories--about Vietnam and the people who still carry it with them decades after the war--are entertaining, insightful, nuanced, and relevant to someone born yeasrs after the ceasefire, who never saw combat himself and who's never been a big fan of war stories anyway. But these aren't war stories. They're stories about life and the way we deal with it and do what we can to avoid dealing with it.

"A true war story is never about war."

The Things They Carried directly inspired me to write two essays. I wrote the first one in 1996, in the hours after I finished reading the book for the first time. I hadn't completed any creative writing in years, if sucky song lyrics don't count. The second was the best of my 59 Fly Casual" columns I published in our college paper from 1997 to 1999. Those are just the direct inspirations.

If I can't read or write comic books these days without being influenced or informed by Alan Moore's Watchmen, then I can't read or write prose without being influenced by this book. I owe a debt to O'Brien and to the professors (Dan Lehman and Joe Mackall) who introduced me to his writing. I hope or believe my best writing these days pays some of the interest on that debt, and that someday my work will be strong enough to tackle the principle.


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