The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien tells the stories of American soldiers serving in a platoon during the Vietnam War. It is a connected series of short stories that some people refer to as a novel. In chapter 4, "On the Rainy River," the narrator (who goes by the author's name of Tim O'Brien) attempts to flee the draft and escape into Canada, but with the help of an old man that runs a motel near the border, he changes his mind and returns home to enlist. At the beginning of this chapter, O'Brien delineates his main reasons for wanting to avoid the war.

First of all, he hates the war and can't understand why it is being fought. He feels that it's wrong and that blood is being spilled for ambiguous reasons.

I saw no unity of purpose, no consensus on matters of philosophy or history or law. The very facts were shrouded in uncertainty: Was it a civil war? A war of national liberation or simple aggression? Who started it, and when, and why?

Because O'Brien cannot answer these and other questions, he is in "moral confusion." He doesn't believe in fighting a war without understanding why it is being fought.

Secondly, as O'Brien explains, "I was too good for this war." He considers himself compassionate and smart. He is an award-winning student with a full scholarship to Harvard. He figures that anyway, he wouldn't make a good soldier because he can't stand camping out, dirt, the sight of blood, or authority. In addition, he considers himself a liberal and thinks that they should send people that believe in the war to fight instead.

Finally, O'Brien is frightened of the war and doesn't want to die. He describes this third reason as "the raw fact of terror."

I sometimes felt the fear spreading inside me like weeds. I imagined myself dead. I imagined myself doing things I could not do - charging an enemy position, taking aim at another human being.

Although O'Brien overcomes his fear and decides to return home and enlist, he considers this an act of cowardice, as he explains at the end of "On the Rainy River." He returns out of embarrassment of what others will think of him if he runs away.