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What was Tim O’Brien’s experience during the Vietnam War?

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American writer Tim O’Brien was drafted into the U.S. Army and served in the Vietnam War (1954–75). He had been opposed to the war and intended to go to Canada while in training in Washington. Instead, he returned to the army base out of fear, and the following year he was sent to fight in Vietnam. During his service, he walked with his platoon to the village of My Lai, where a massacre of unarmed villagers by another platoon had occurred in March 1968, unbeknownst to O’Brien and his platoon mates. O’Brien later wrote about this experience in “The Vietnam in Me,” which was published in The New York Times.