Tim O'Brien did not want to become a writer.  He went to college with the intentions of going to graduate school.  He thought he would become a professor or get involved in politics.  However, one month after graduating college, O'Brien was drafted into the United States Army.  O'Brien was not necessarily an activist against the war but did feel that his taking part in the war would not be morally right for him.  Pushing these misgivings aside, O'Brien went to Vietnam.  Participating in the Vietnam War would forever change the life of Tim O'Brien.
    The Vietnam War was an experience that changed the lives of many others, too.  Many Americans were against U.S. involvement from the beginning.  The war itself began because of Communist forces in North Vietnam attacking South Vietnam.  At this point the United States had a policy against the spread of communism called the Policy of Containment.  Even though there was no direct threat toward the U.S., American troops were sent over by the thousands.  At first there was not much resistance to the war being fought on the other side of the world.  However, as television and journalism became important news sources people saw for the first time the horrors of war.
    The Vietnam War was different from the other wars fought by the U.S. for a number of reasons.  One of the reasons was that so many American soldiers were killed.  Among other reasons were strong opposition to the war, no true understanding of what we were fighting for, and significant drug use by the soldiers.  These factors and many more contributed to the extreme harshness of the Vietnam War.
    While stationed in Vietnam Tim O'Brien began writing down stories about the war.  In March of 1970 O'Brien was sent home and attempted to return to a "normal life."  As he would soon realize, memories of the war were so vivid that he was unable to think of much else.  O'Brien began working on his first novel while he was employed as a journalist at the Washington Post.  The Vietnam War dominates the theme and moral lesson of O'Brien's stories.  Other influences on O'Brien's work are authors Joseph Conrad, William Faulkner, and Ernest Hemingway to name a few.
    One unique aspect of Tim O'Brien's stories is that he believes the truth in storytelling is better than actual truth.  Although his stories are considered fiction there are some aspects of reality in each and every one.  O'Brien does not fill his stories with mundane facts but instead uses language so vivid he makes a believer out of his readers.
     This quote from O'Brien himself sums up his feelings better than someone else's words ever could.  "I think two hundred years, seven hundred years, a thousand years from now, when Vietnam is filled with condominiums . . . the experience of Vietnam - all the facts ñ will be gone.  Who knows, a thousand years from now the facts will disappear - bit by bit - and all that we'll be left with are stories.  To me it doesn't really matter if they're true stories."