A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage
virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men
from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do
not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if
you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the
larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and
terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a
first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its
absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil. ”
―
Tim O'Brien,
The Things They Carried
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