Letter To Tim O' Brien about "Ambush"

Marya Altaf 103-02
Cupcake Avenue Maspeth N.Y. 11378
February 14, 2008

Dear Speaker, I have read about your experience in the short story “Ambush.” This story is incredibly captivating. You use many literary elements to inspire the reader. The imagery that you use in your writing is also very attractive. In this short story you are mainly trying to tell the reader that you still live with regret about killing the soldier unexpectedly.

In “Ambush” you speak about how difficult it was to tell your daughter about why you write war stories. Will you ever tell your daughter the truth? In “Ambush” you mention about how “there was no real peril” at the moment between you and the soldier. If you figured that there was no real danger, then why were you so afraid of the soldier when you first glanced at him? The way you use vision imagery is very imaginative, for example when you write “he wore black clothing and rubber sandals and a gray ammunition belt.” The reader can visualize the soldier as exactly how he’s being described.

In our society today soldiers are considered as our hero’s. My main question to you is that after this experience in the Vietnam War, do you still feel like a hero to the society, or even to your daughter? In “Ambush” you write of about how you hope your daughter will ask again of about “why you write war stories.” Why do you hope so? The true reason of why you always write war stories is that you have faced war experience in life. Do you ever wish to go back in time and change everything so that you don’t have to feel guilty about killing the soldier all your life?

It is very creative how you can describe how you exactly felt that day. I really like the fact that you used simile by writing “which tasted like lemonade, something fruity and sour.” The reader is able to visualize how you really felt at that moment of your lifetime. After this lifetime experience during a war, you seem to not forget about the exact things that happened to you on that day. If you know that the experience you faced was an accident than why do you still feel the guilt inside you about killing the soldier? I would definitely recommend your literature to other readers because it has inspired me in many ways.



Sincerely,

Marya Altaf