AMBUSH
BY TIM O’BRIEN
Tim O’Brien (b. 1946) was about to enroll in a
graduate program at Harvard University when he was
drafted into military service during the Vietnam War.
This central event in his life has been the focus of his
fiction. The story “Ambush” comes from his 1990
book The Things They Carried, which blurred many
lines between fact and fiction and between novel and
short story collection.