Turkey Capital

American author Tim O’Brien was born on October 1, 1946 in Minnesota. He grew up in Worthington, known as the Turkey Capital of the World. After his graduation in 1968, he was drafted to fight in Vietnam. Although he was greatly against the Vietnam War, he was force to report for service as an infantry foot soldier. His assignment in Vietnam and his troop was involved with the My Lai massacre which happened also in the same year. This is where his famous book In the Lake of the Woods was figured.

After his stint in Vietnam he became a graduate student at Harvard and was one of the students and veterans of Vietnam who hold a Combat Infantry Badge (CIB). His love for literature inspired him to work as an intern at the Washington Post and eventually became a reporter for the newspaper and left Harvard. With his job, he began to relate his stories as a soldier and came up with the publication of his popular book, If I Die in Combat Zone and Box Me Up and Send Me Home. All these portray how life in Vietnam put every man’s life in danger and agony.

In his literary works, he mixes fiction with real life experiences and caught the attention of many readers. His emotional and dramatic literature also became finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle for his work, The Things They Carried. He also received honors for the National Magazine Award and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts (Merricks). All these awards were evidence of his controversial life in the Vietnam as much as it relates to the impact of war to the American soldiers, the US government and the devastation in Vietnam and its people.

Though, the books were partly fictionalized, the people seek for them because they were hungry for stories which they do not get from the media. The government has put limitations and controlled deliberation of news from Vietnam. O’Brien’s book focuses on one thing – there was a war out there and there were insignificant killings, brutality, raped and injustice. The stories of this author are worth discussing over to induce awareness and consciousness on the possible effect of war. Work Cited: Merricks, Alvin. “About Tim O’brien. ” 2004.

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