In Tim O'Brien's 1990 book about American soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War, The Things They Carried, the narrator of one of the stories tells the readers: "Twenty years ago I watched a man die on the trail near the village of My Khe. I did not kill him.
"But I was present, you see, and my presence was guilt enough. I remember his face, which was not a pretty face, because his jaw was in his throat, and I remember feeling the burden of responsibility and grief. I blame myself. And rightly so, because I was present."
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