Describe one item that you carry and explain the significance of this object. If you were going to war and could only take three personal items, what would you bring and why would you want to carry that item? In “How to Tell a True War Story,” O’Brien writes: “In any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way. The angles of vision are skewed…The pictures get jumbled; you tend to miss a lot. And then afterward, when you go to tell about it, there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed.” In the stories read so far, where does O’Brien’s writing reflect the surreal nature of war and explain how he achieves this affect. What kinds of truths can surrealism reveal?