The Scars We Bear Tim O'Brien wanted us to understand the fear that war brings, the stress of war and the permanent effects it has on a soldier's life after the war. This is what he wanted us to know when he wrote his book Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy. He wanted us to understand the fear that war bings. He does this by describing the different levels of fear. “Though he was afraid, he now knew that fear came in many different degrees and types and peculiar categories, and he knew that his fear know was not so bad as it had been in the hot afternoon, when poor Billy Boy Watkins died of a heart attack.”(O’Brien 199). In this section he says that “he now knew that feat came in many different degrees”(O’Brien 199). O’Brien also wants us to understand the stress of war. O’Brien does this through Billy Boy Watkins. This is how he gets his message across “SORRY TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR SON BILLY BOY WAS YESTERDAY SCARED TO DEATH IN ACTION IN THE REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM, VALIANTLY SUCCUMBING TO A HEART ATTACK SUFFERED UNDER ENORMOUS STRESS”(O’Brien 201-202). Billy was scared to death, so scared that under enormous stress, he ended…show more content… He does this in a speech he gave, “sometimes I forgive myself other times I don’t in the ordinary hours of life I try not to think about it but now and then when i’m reading a newspaper or just sitting quietly alone in a room I’ll look up and I’ll see the young man coming out of the morning fog I’ll watch him walk toward me his shoulders slightly stooped his head cocked to the side and he’ll pass within a few yards of me and suddenly simile at some secret thought and then continue up the trail to where it bends back into the morning fog”(How to Tell a True War Story Tim O’Brien). This soldier still has memories of the war. He also states at the end of his speech that this story is so real to him. He also almost started
