How does Bao Ninh create atmosphere in order to establish an appeal to the readers in the first chapter?

Undeniably, the core topic of the novel is the horrors of warfare and the Vietnam War in particular. Like the book, The Things They Carried, The Sorrow of War seems to be a compendium of shattered vignettes. In Ninh's novel, the reader sees war as a compilation of traumatic remembrances, mixed together as one entity. It's in an attempt to share the experience with the reader that Kien subjects himself once more to the horrors of his memory. Kien is purposely triggering his episodes of Post-Traumatic stress when he collects his experiences for the purpose of writing them into a book. This languishing description of PTSD is difficult to bear, but the suggestion seems to be that for Kien, telling the truth about what happened to him is part of his duty somehow, and his reward for processing the experiences in language is that he enjoys a somewhat peaceful memory.