The exact events depicted in the story did not happen. However, O’Brien expresses that ‘made-up things are sometimes truer than the truth,’ and this can be true. The way O’Brien writes this story, it makes the audience feel the gradual loss of Mary Anne and so the gradual loss of innocence that the soldiers experienced. The way the story ended, with the disappearance of Mary Anne, left the story feeling unresolved, like there was more to the story. This is how the soldiers must have felt after the war. Once they got back, there was no easy way to readjust to civilian life, feelings of aggression and violence went unresolved and undealt-with. In this way, by keeping to the feelings of the soldiers, O’Brien has made the feeling and the tone of the story true, even without any actual facts. In this regard, “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” is a true war story, but only in this abstract