short journal entry on The Things They Carried

Tim O'Brien's claim in "On the Rainy River" (the fourth chapter of The Things They Carried)that going to the war was an act of cowardice is paradoxical, but it's also his claim to make. Physical courage is not the only species of courage; moral courage is often less concrete but may be as fundamental, as essential, to the survival of the self as physical courage is. How many memoirists 'go there'? Of course The Things They Carried isn't a memoir. But then why is Tim O'Brien such a major character in it, both as platoon member and, much more, as self-conscious narrator? Suppose one took "Tim O'Brien" out of the book. Then it could no longer be the story of his keeping Timmy alive; and it would miss the particular kind of authenticity (as well as the particular kind of story-telling) that it now "performs," as some of my younger college-schooled friends say. Every time I read this book, I want to write about it, much more than this post implies.