In the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, Rat Kiley tells the story of how he was part of a small medical detachment in Vietnam and Mark Fossie one of the soldiers stationed there was able to get his girlfriend there through a supply drop. He tells how when she first arrived in Vietnam she was a beautiful, bubbly and everyone there liked having her around. She started to take curiosity about what happens in Vietnam and pestered her boyfriend to teach her everything. Slowly after that, she started to become more rugged and hardened to what Vietnam is truly like and started going on ambush missions with the greenies. She was slowly growing mad because of the way she was able to become numb to all the horrors there and eventually she broke up with Mark Fossie and became one with the jungle. Instead of wearing jewelry and the feminine things she once wore turned into a crewed necklace of human tounges and camouflage then vanished into the mountains.
This was all told from the perspective of Rat Kiley who is known to tell stories and blow them out of proportion making it a lot more than what actually happened. The question is do I believe the story told by Rat Kiley, and to be honest I’m not sure because it is told by a non-trustworthy person but it all seems so real and crazy that it would be hard to blow it out of proportion. I think that the essence of what he said is true but the entire story is not. I believe that there was a girl who went to Vietnam to see her boyfriend but ended up becoming corrupted by the horrors of the war. It definitely is kind of hard to believe that this very feminine, beautiful girl turned into a crazed savage within the short time of being in Vietnam but with what the people there had to go through I think that this is entirely possible.
The story is hard to believe but I don’t think that the lack of believability makes it any less compelling of a story. I think that the lack of believability makes it even more of a compelling story because if it was another run of the mill war story where she went there to see her boyfriend and then left as the same person then they got happily married is too good to be true. She ended up going insane and became one with Vietnam leaving behind everything and everyone she ever knew. I think that because this story is so crazy it grabs your attention and does not let go making you wonder what happened to her and can this really happen to people who are part of the war. The lack of believability helps make this story more compelling to read and makes you more interested in it than if it were believable.
I think that people exaggerate the truth in stories not to deceive people but to make them feel what the narrator felt when it happened. The thing about her having six human tongues on copper wire for a necklace is crazy and may have not happened but if it was not added then we will not fully understand just how far gone she is and how animalistic and mad she has become during her stay in Vietnam. The exaggeration of the truth makes you feel more for what is going on and makes you understand the meaning of the story more than if it were told to you cut and dry.