Poet, soldier, author & father Tim O’Brien on the extraordinary, beautiful power of maybe S02EP16

We Can Be - The Heinz Endowments · Oct 16, 2019 · 49m

“The Things They Carried” brought National Book Award-winning author Tim O’Brien fame, and the unparalleled poetic beauty and honesty of his novels, short stories and memoirs have cemented his status as one of our most revered contemporary writers.

Born and raised in southern Minnesota, Tim was a high school student body president who opposed the Vietnam War, and was drafted several weeks after graduation. He served in the area known as “Pinkville,” the location of two sites where American massacres of Vietnamese villagers occurred.

“When my life collided with Vietnam, I realized not only…