Dec 19, 2009

The Things They Carried | Author Biography

O'Brien's life resembles many of his protagonists. Born October 2, 1946, and raised in the small town of Wortington, Minnesota, by his insurance salesman father and elementary school teacher mother, O'Brien's childhood and adolescence was marked by loneliness and isolation. When he was a student at Macalester College in St. Paul, however, he found a place in the antiwar movement and attended war protests and peace vigils. After graduating with a degree in political science and plans to reform government from the inside, O'Brien was drafted instead. Resisting the impulse to defect to...