O rsquo brien says he has not told this story to his parents, siblings, or wife. He speaks of living with the shame of the story, whose events occurred during the summer of 1968. A month after he graduates from macalaster college, phi beta kappa, summa cum laude, and president of the student body, tim o rsquo brien receives his draft notice to fight in the vietnam war. Like most americans, the young o rsquo brien doesn rsquo t know what happened to the uss maddox in the gulf of tonkin, and he can rsquo t discern what type of person ho chi minh, the president of north vietnam, really is. The day the draft notice is delivered, o rsquo brien thinks that he is too good to fight the war.

Although his community pressures him to go, he resists making a decision about whether to go to war or flee. He spends the summer in a meatpacking plant in his hometown of worthington, minnesota, removing blood clots from pigs with a water gun. He comes home every night stinking of pig and drives around town aimlessly, paralyzed, wondering how to find a way out of his situation. The government won rsquo t allow him to defer in order to go to graduate school he can rsquo t oppose the war as a matter of general principle because he does agree with war in some circumstances and he can rsquo t claim ill health as an excuse. He resents his hometown for making him feel compelled to fight a war that it doesn rsquo t even know anything about. In the middle of the summer, o rsquo brien begins thinking seriously about fleeing to canada, eight hours north of worthington.

He worries, however, that such an action will lose him the respect of his family and community. During his sleepless nights, he struggles with his anger at the lack of perspective on the part of those who influenced him. Feeling what he describes as a physical rupture in his chest, he leaves work suddenly, drives home, and writes a vague note to his family.

He heads north and then west along the rainy river, which separates minnesota from canada. The next afternoon, after spending the night behind a closed down gas station, he pulls into a dilapidated fishing resort, the tip top lodge, and meets the elderly proprietor, elroy berdahl. Although o rsquo brien never mentions his reason for going to the canadian border, he has the sense that elroy knows, since the quiet old man is sharp and intelligent. One night o rsquo brien inquires about his bill, and after the two men discuss o rsquo brien rsquo s work mdash washing dishes and doing odd jobs mdash in relation to the cost of the room, elroy concludes that he owes o rsquo brien more than a hundred dollars and offers o rsquo brien two hundred.

O rsquo brien refuses the money, but the next morning he finds four fifty dollar bills in an envelope tacked to his door. He invites us to reflect with him, to pretend that we rsquo re watching an old home movie of o rsquo brien, tan and fit, wearing faded blue jeans and a white polo shirt, sitting on elroy rsquo s dock, and thinking about writing an apologetic letter to his parents. On o rsquo brien rsquo s last full day at the tip top lodge, elroy takes him fishing on the rainy river.

During the voyage it occurs to o rsquo brien that they must have stopped in canadian territory mdash soon after, elroy stops the boat. O rsquo brien stares at the shoreline of canada, twenty yards ahead of him, and wonders what to do. O rsquo brien tells himself he will run to canada, but he silently concludes that he will go to war because he is embarrassed not to. The next morning, o rsquo brien washes the breakfast dishes, leaves the two hundred dollars on the kitchen counter, and drives south to his home. The story develops the theme of embarrassment as a motivating factor, first introduced by jimmy cross in ldquo the things they carried rdquo and ldquo love.

Rdquo just as jimmy cross feels guilty about ted lavender rsquo s death, o rsquo brien feels guilty about going to vietnam against his principles. He questions his own motives, and in this story he returns to the genesis of his decision in order to examine with us the specifics of cause and effect. In an attempt to relieve some shame and guilt about his involvement in the war, middle aged writer o'brien relates a story about himself that he has never before told anyone. O'brien's story is about the summer of 1968 when he was 21 years old and was drafted to serve in the army.

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Before his draft notice arrived, o'brien had taken a mild stand against the war in the form of campaigning for the presidential campaign of anti war advocate eugene mccarthy and writing college newspaper editorials against the war. He recounts his thoughts on receiving a draft notice, feeling that he was not suited for war because his educational accomplishments and graduate school prospects were too great. The work is messy and unpleasant, and o'brien feels his life going out of control. Around mid july, o'brien begins thinking about crossing the border into canada to avoid the draft. He weighs the morality of this decision as he fears losing respectability, being ridiculed, and being caught by authorities. While at work in the slaughterhouse, o'brien suddenly feels an urge to go to canada.

He leaves work and drives north along the rainy river, the natural border between the u.s. Elroy does not pry into o'brien's plans, though they are probably fairly obvious. O'brien continues to feel nervousness and fear, and above all else, shame for running to canada, but he joins elroy in chores around the lodge to forget about his troubles. When figuring o'brien's bill, elroy recalls the chores o'brien had done, decides that instead he owes o'brien money, and gives him $200. O'brien refuses the money, though he would need it if he did continue on to canada. He remembers crying and feeling helpless while elroy just keeps on fishing, pretending not to notice. O'brien tries to force himself out of the boat and toward the canadian shore but can not compel himself to flee to canada.

They return to the lodge, and o'brien departs for home and, eventually, for vietnam. From the first sentence of the chapter, o'brien begins to impress, however subtly, the importance of the novel's form, a blend of war autobiography and writer's memoir. Generally, a writer's memoir is more essayistic and contemplative than an autobiography, in which an author recounts scenes from his or her own life. Writer's memoirs frequently describe how a writer writes and what the conditions were mdash mental and emotional mdash that surrounded the production of some literary or journalistic work. The admission that this is one story i've never told before signals two points to the reader. First, the story establishes a confessional tone and creates an immediate empathy between the reader and the o'brien character.

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Second, in the context of the preceding chapter, the reader knows that this is an unresolved story, perhaps a fragment of memory that, given o'brien's philosophy of storytelling, is being crafted into a story as a means for understanding the events of the past. Yet the story is not fragmentary and disconnected, abruptly moving between memories. The overall form of the chapter is narrative, though the stream of consciousness interjection of raw emotions interrupts the story's fluidity.