Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[The Grand Nudger]

I'd advise you, Randy, not to trust anything you read in a war story to be the gospel truth.  If a soldier tells you, or writes, that a building he took cover in was a red barn......you'll have to find a way to be comfortable with the fact that he may be mis-remembering, telling a little white lie in service of some other part of the narrative (or to avoid telling the -actual- narrative)......or it may have been the glare from mortar flare on white paint......and that's ignoring whether or not it was a barn, or that said soldier can distinguish between a barn and any number of other buildings (or even gives a fuck). Particular to war stories or war journals...don;t get hung up on the details of the type of structure or it's color, that's not the story you're being told...it isn't about a barn, or the color red.

I could tell you true war stories all day, and you'd probably end up noticing that no one ever shoots their rifle, or gets shot...in my war stories. The sun is always shining, the characters are always laughing, the job is always boring. Would you conclude that no one ever shot their rifle or got shot and that being an infantryman was literally a walk in a foreign park..... on the basis of my stories, or would you suddenly appreciate nuance and narrative skill?