If Davidson and Lytle we're to read Tim O'Brien's material, they would consider it to be mythical. In "When Trouble Comes" they define myth as, "any real or fictional story, recurring theme, or character type that appeals to the consciousness of a people by embodying its cultural ideals or giving expressions to deep, commonly felt emotions." What Tim O'Brien writes aren't exactly non-fiction material, but what is true is that he has primary source of the Vietnam War, which is his experience as a veteran of the war.
As a person who fought in the Vietnam War, O'Brien has a better understanding of what really went on in Vietnam, rather than a news reporter who was just reading out military charts. However, his stories would be seen as mythical because O'Brien himself writes, "I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth." Writing by this theme, he retells what he felt in Vietnam by giving it a dramatic feel, which would cause Davidson and Lytle to call it, "radically different from that of a letter or diary..."
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I disagree with you. O'Brien may not have exactly experienced everything he wrote about but he created them out of his many experiences in Vietnam as a foot soldier. The people he was always around, the image of the dead man and the moments of temporary peace could not all have been fantasized in his head. They are all real events and real stories which he has taken and brought to life so that others can know the truth and the reality behind the Vietnam War.
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