In speaking about his craft and why he tells war stories, O’Brien says, “That’s what fiction is for. It’s for getting at the truth when the truth isn’t sufficient for the truth.” For more than thirty years he has, with novels like Going After Cacciato, The Things They Carried and In the Lake of the Woods, illustrated the experience of a soldier at war as well as a soldiers returning home. O’Brien has been awarded The National Book Award as well as the Dayton Literary Peace Prize lifetime achievement award.