Tim O'Brien is the narrator and main character of this memoir. A native of Minnesota, he is drafted the summer after he finishes college. During and before basic training, O'Brien contemplates dodging the draft and deserting boot camp, but decides not to. He is haunted by the prospect of embarrassing his loved ones back home in Minnesota. This fear is so powerful it overcomes his deep opposition to participating in the Vietnam War.
When O'Brien arrives in Vietnam he is no longer the polite college boy from the prairie he was before basic training, yet he is still very green and naïve about the ways of war. He stumbles through his first few weeks in Vietnam. He is given an assignment as a radio operator, yet still feels out of place and slightly terrified.....
