Tim O'Brien

1.The Life of Tim O’Brien On October 1, 1946 the author William Timothy O’Brien was born. Born and raised until he was ten, O’Brien lived in Austin Minnesota. Conceived by insurance salesman and an elementary school teacher who were both in combat themselves would soon reckon with Tim later in life. Then when he was ten years old he and his family moved to the “Turkey Capital” (0 of the United States, Worthington, Minnesota. O’Brien lived the classic, stereotypical Midwestern childhood. He played three sports; one of which was baseball where his father was the coach. After his high school career he attended Macalester College where he majored in political science and was also the Student Body President his senior year. Two weeks after graduation and life seems to be going well and then O’Brien gets his draft notice stating that he must fight in the war no one wanted to be part of, Vietnam. “I went to my room in the basement and started pounding the typewriter”. (0
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When he first received the notice O’Brien contemplated the idea of abandoning his duty to serve in the war and defecting to Canada. However, “the prospect of rejection: by my family my country my friends, my hometown” convinced O’Brien that he had to say and fight the war
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In August of 1968 O’Brien was sent to Vietnam and served in the U.S. Army Fifth Battalion, 46th Infantry. O’Brien was sent to “Pinkville” where just a year earlier Lieutenant William Calley and his squad “Charlie Company” slaughtered, raped, and abused 500 innocent Vietnamese citizens. When O’Brien got there his squad and him “all wondered why the place was so hostile.”() After moving up ranks to Sergeant; O’Brien in his thirtieth month was struck by grenade shrapnel and sent home with a Purple Heart.
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O’Brien would then attend Harvard University where he studied government in pursue of his Doctorate. When he was at Harvard O’Brien received a summer internship at The Washington Post where he “was there for two