For a long time, the gruesome and mind-boggling nature of war stories has led readers to question their truth. This is especially true in emotional anecdotes told about the Vietnam War. Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried, is one of the first to address the idea of ​​truth in his own novel. Because O'Brien never confirms the reality of his tales, many readers wonder whether the stories he weaves are actually true. O'Brien doesn't want his audience to read so deeply into the facts and figures. He shouldn't care if his stories actually happened. O'Brien's main purpose in writing about Vietnam is to share the stories he physically could not tell in a way that saves himself and society. His goal is to use writing as self-publishing, while at the same time warning his audience of the horrors of war. Tim O'brien uses his novel to share the stories he can't physically tell. It is only years after returning from the war that O'Brien is able to write about his decision to go to war. He admits that he never told the story “to [his] parents,” to his “brother or sister,” or “even to [his] wife” (O'Brien 37). By putting the facts on paper,” even years later, O'Brien can “relieve at least some of the pressure on [his] dreams” (37). Because O'brien cannot "[find] the courage" to tell others about how he feels, he writes stories that capture his emotional essence in a way that provides self-liberation (52). Likewise, when O'brien's daughter, Kathleen, “asks him if he had ever killed anyone,” he cannot find a way to answer anything other than “Of course not” (125). Even though he wants to "tell her what happened, or what [he] remembers happened," he can't find a way to tell her. According to O'Brien “this is... half the paper... and the psychological change that war can bring about in strong individuals. Through the stories of these characters, O'Brien wants to ensure that his readers do not go to war. Because O'Brien believes he was “a coward” because he “went to war,” he tries to protect the rest of society by explaining the effects of his bad decision (72). As a forty-three-year-old author writing about war decades after his experiences, O'Brien cares little if he tells stories solely in line with the facts. He doesn't want the reader to care whether the stories he weaves actually happened, as he writes only to "try to save lives with [his] stories" (232). His stories may be made up and his stories may simply be lies, but the truth is irrelevant. More importantly, his stories save lives. They save theirs, they save yours and they save those of society.