Blog Three AZ

In "The Things They Carried", Tim O'Brien expresses his memories and feelings about his involvement in the Vietnam War through numerous stories and accounts of his fellow soldiers. Throughout the book he emphasizes the weight that soldiers bear in the war. This weight deeply affects all involved and not only has to deal with the physical weight of what they actually carry but also the emotional and pyschological weight that is involved. He explains that the soldiers deal with it in different manners and that for some, the only way to address their "weight" is to tell stories. Even if the stories they tell are not true it is important for them to tell the stories and share their experiences and feelings in order to stay connected to the world. He also addresses the issue of how soldiers commonly lose their innocence due to the hardships and gruesome horrors that they experiece and the impossible task to stay level-headed and grounded in such an unimaginable environment.

O'Brien states that some of the stories are true accounts, where as others are fiction. He also points out that it is impossible to know for sure whether a war story is a true war story or not. In war, what actually happens is never really a hundred percent sure. There are so many factors and variables that occur and influence the situation.

For O'Brien, when he tells of the man he killed, he recalls of "the star shaped hole" on the victums face. He even goes into detail about the young man's life and background. He creates a whole story about the man's childhood and how he was made fun of for "his smooth skin and his love for mathematics" (121). This part of the story is complete fiction made up by O'Brien in order to put the reader in his shoes and let the audience see and feel as clearly as he did in that situation. O'Brien explains that some times it is necessary to lie and make up false parts to a war story so that its effect can be purely felt. What actually happened does not entierly matter. What is more important is how and why a story is being told. When O'Brien speaks about the war he establishes a bond with the audience and connects them to the soldiers involved in the situation so that they can get more out of the story and really feel what the war meant to the soldiers.

The first chapter, "The Things They Carried" refers not only the physical weight that soldiers bear, but also the burden of the emotional and psychological weight that follows them for the rest of their lives, even after the war is over and they go home back to their everyday life. In any war soldiers are very limited to the amount of things they have so what they do physically carry with them has significant importance to their survival. Besides the necessities like things such as radios, guns, grenades, compasses, binoculars, and ponchos, soldiers often carry with them small objects that keep them going mentally. For example Kiowa and his Bible, Lavender and his reliance on dope or Jimmy Cross and his pictures and letters from Martha. These small physical things that they carried are what kept their spirits alive and running. The idea of the girl waiting for them back home was very popular among the soldiers and provided them with something to daydream about and live for. It kept their minds going and off the horrible surrounding that they were currently in.

Even after the war the soldiers still carried with them their grief, deep emotions, regrets, and memories about the war. For example, Bowker carried so much grief and confusion about the war that he had to drive around aimlessly for hours. He couldn't deal with the constant reminder every day of what he went through in Vietnam and eventually the weight came to be too much. He had no one to talk to and no way of dealing with the weight he beared. It eventually crushed him pyschologically which led him to commit suicide.

The amount of hardships that the soldiers had to go through were painfully difficult. O'Brien emphasized numerous times throughout the book how young and innocent all of his fellow soldiers used to be. He would constantly say things like "he was a real good person", or "he had a great heart" and then he would later go on to describe how the war changed that good and innocent person. He explained how all the horror, terror and gruesome aspects of the war forced many young soldiers to change and lose their innocence. Towards the end of the book, O'Brien connects this idea of losing one's innocence in the war to his story about his childhood sweetheart Linda. He expresses the idea that people lose their innocence in every day life just like in war and have just as hard of a time accepting and dealing with death. He explains that they have to distract themselves from their loss by making things up, just like soldiers have to tell stories in order to go on. For example thirty years later after losing his friend he confesses that he still thinks about her but that "She's not the embodied Linda; she's mostly made up, with a new identity and a new name, like the man who never was. Her real name doesn't matter" (232). This enforces the idea that the true facts and figures about a person or situation never really matter in a story. It is the feelings involved, emotions felt, and meaning that is associated with a story that is what makes a lasting impact.