Five-Sentence Summary

1. Exposition/Initial Incident:
In Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy? a war story by Tim OBrien,
the main character Paul is a new soldier in the Vietnam War who is
struggling to accept and confront the fear of death that was greatly induced
by the demise of Billy, a comrade of Paul, who had died of a heart attack on
Pauls first day in Vietnam.

2. Conflict:
To illustrate, Billy who was as tough as nails had stepped on a mine,
resulting in him having his foot blown off and although Billy survives the
accident, he dies of a heart attack due to the fear of death and causes Paul to
have great fear of his own death but struggle to confront and accept the fear
he now supposedly has.

3. Rising Action:
In fact, Paul devises many techniques in order to distract himself from fear
but eventually while sleeping, Paul shows himself struggling to confront and
accept fear by screaming I wasnt afraid repeatedly until a soldier named
Buffalo wakes Paul up and relaxes him.

4. Climax:
After relaxing Paul from his screams, Buffalo brings up the topic of Billy,
which then inevitably triggers Pauls fear (which came in many degrees and
types and peculiar categories) of death to finally get the best of him, thus
releasing his fear in the peculiar category of giggles.
5. Resolution:
After a long period of giggling, Buffalo once again manages to quiet Paul
who is now exhausted from the giggling that was an attempt to cope with the
torrent of never ending fear but ultimately in the end, he [Paul] could not
stop being afraid.