Right then, with the shore so close, I understood that I wo… - Tim O'Brien

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Right then, with the shore so close, I understood that I would not do what I should do. I would not swim away from my hometown and my country and my life. I would not be brave.

Tim O'Brien

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About Tim O'Brien

Tim O'Brien (born October 1, 1946) is an American novelist who mainly writes about his experiences in the Vietnam War and the impact that the war had on the American soldiers who fought there.

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Alternative Names: William Timothy "Tim" O'Brien

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Chris Kyle James Jones Percival Everett Stephen Crane John le Carré

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Knowledge, of course, is always imperfect, but it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause. You can't fix your mistakes. Once people are dead, you can't make them undead.

They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing — these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight.

Did I choose this life of illusion? Don't be mad. My bed was made, I just lied in it. (p. 87)

Right then, with the shore so close, I understood that I would not do what I should do. I would not swim away from my hometown and my country and my … - Tim O'Brien

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