He took many incidents he experienced during the war and invented other truths, to help clarify his point of view and move away from tragedy inside the story itself. Moreover, says O'Brien, "we kept the dead alive through stories" (226). In war you meet a lot of people and you lose a lot of people. These soldiers would tell stories to make it seem like the friends they had lost were still alive, in order to rid themselves of the grief they felt from all the death they were experiencing. O'Brien explains that when Rat Kiley told stories about Curt Lemon, saying, "to listen to the story, especially as Rat Kiley told it, you would never know that Curt Lemon was dead." He was always out there in the dark, naked and made up, trick-or-treating, sliding up and down in his crazy white ghost mask. But he was dead” (227). We can see here that their use of narrative was not only a way to kill time, but also a way to cope with the lost and tragic experiences they had during the war. Besides, O'Brien says, "they're all dead." But in a story that is in some way a dream, the dead sometimes smile, stand up and return to the world” (213). Once again we can see that these stories are used for more than just a way to pass the time; however, as a useful method of coping with the events that have taken place. Maybe, O'Brien