True or False- War Stories are True?

O'Brien confused me in the chapter "How to Tell a True War Story." He contradicts himself on several occasions. By repeating the phrase "a true war story is..." we see the complexity of memories and need to share stories, however real they may be. "A true war story cannot be believed" (page 68), but then O'Brien goes on to say four pages later that "you can tell a true war story by the way it never ends." One such story is the account of how Curt Lemon died. O'Brien brings up the death four different times on pages 67, 75, 79, and 81; he can't rid his mind of this image of Lemon blowing to pieces, so he keeps bringing it up. Irony plays its part when O'Brien admits that "what wakes [him] up twenty years later is Dave Jensen singing 'Lemon Tree' as [they] threw down the pieces [of Lemon's body]." It's a war story that doesn't end.

Even though O'Brien wrote all these stories, I had a hard time believing them after reading this chapter. "It's safe to say that in a true war story nothing is ever absolutely true" (page 78); however, maybe the point isn't in the validation of the story. But in the people and the things they faced and pulled themselves through, like picking pieces of Curt Lemon out of a tree.