Are they true stories or not?

when discussing this book with other students, I've found that almost everybody wants to know if these stories are true and they are confused about why they wouldn't be. However, I think the author did this for a very specific reason. He describes that a true war story can hardly ever be true because the person telling the story wants you to feel as they did at the time. Just as a the classic fisher man's story. the fish he caught was never as big as he described yet that may be true to him because he was so excited at the time, to him the fish was that big. This is explained most clearly in the chapter Good Form where Tim explains that although he did not ever kill a man he still felt responsible for his death. "I watched a man die on a 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 blamed myself. and rightly so because I was present." "Kathleen can say," did you ever kill anybody?" and I can honestly say "OF course not." or I can say honestly, "yes"