Memory traffic rotary

O’Brien doesn’t just recall and prepare his stories, put them in order for a solid structure of storytelling, and leave them to the reader. He wants us to experience the way in which he recalls these memories, because it is the way in which the memories are fragmented, and the way certain objects or events tie to a seemingly unrelated memory that gives us insight to the psyche of the characters, of what it is like to experience the horror of war. O’Brien shows us in the first chapter that his recollection separates his story to either before or after the death of Ted Lavender. This shows the effect Ted’s death had on him. An object as innocent as a poncho makes him recall Ted’s death. In the chapter “Spin”, O’Brien uses separate sections or paragraphs for each small story or recollection, with no overall theme to tie them together, as a way of showing us how sporadic memory can be at recalling events. He recalls watching a game of checkers, and thinking about how the game is analogous to the Vietnam conflict. O’Brien uses a large margin to show that, these two thoughts don’t relate in a grand story arc, but they do relate because it jars his next thought, pure horror as he recalls the brutal death of Curt Lemon, and the death of Kiowa. I feel O’Brien throws in Kiowa’s death, which we have no idea of at this point, to show how there is no cohesion to his memories. As he says “The bad stuff never stops happening, it lives in its own dimension, replaying itself over and over.”