The Things they Carried is a book that describes the experiences and effects of the Vietnam war on a group of soldiers from Alpha Company. The novel is focused on the details of the war instead of a summary of the trooper's tour of duty. This book is comprised of a grouping of stories that when all put together show a detailed perspective of the war from the a common foot soldiers point of view. I enjoyed this version of story telling especially because of the unique way the stories are told multiple times, they unique views this book proposes and the description that the author includes about the war.
O'Brien has a very unique way of telling his stories in the way that he recounts the same event from different perspectives. Often times he would retell the same stories multiple times but would change certain details. He does this by having the same stories told by different soldiers perspectives. This keeps the reader guessing which parts of the story are true and which are embellished. Also, O'Brien tells the reader throughout the book that "A true war story is never about war" (81). War stories aren't meant to have facts but to show a point. This was done to try and evoke the feelings the soldiers were feeling at that exact moment in the reader so that they might experience parts of the war and feel the way the soldiers felt.
One of my favorite parts of the book was the first chapter. This chapter described the physical things the soldiers carried with them into battle. This chapter also offered insight into the emotional baggage that the men carried too. Each man carried mostly the same physical gear but it was the small nick knacks that they each carried with them that set them apart from one another. For example, Jimmy Cross carried around pictures and letters from the girl he had a crush on back home. He constantly thought about her and this took his mind away from the stresses of war and into a peaceful place. However, due to his carelessness one of his soldiers Ted Lavender is shot and Jimmy Cross burns the letters and pictures and picks up the emotional burden of knowing that he let one of his men die. Each of the other men also carried around with them some form of coping with the stresses of war. For Ted it was marijuana and tranquilizers. For Kiowa it was his faith and his illustrated new testament and for Henry Dobbins is was his girlfriends pantyhose. Each unique item that each soldier carried provided insight into how they each coped with the stress of the war.
In the last chapter O'Brien writes about his childhood sweetheart Linda and her tragic death from brain cancer in the 5th grade. O'Brien goes on to describe that writing is how he deals with the stress from the war. Instead of dwelling on the friends that he lost in the war and throughout his life O'Brien writes them back to life. It also, shows O'Brien's loss of innocence.
One particularly interesting part of the book was when O'Brien described what it means to have courage and to be a hero. Before I read this book i thought that being a hero in war was jumping on a grenade. However, O'Brien proposed the idea that being a hero is making and following through with the tough decision. This was illustrated best when O'Brien received his draft letter and decided to run to Canada. He made it within 20 feet of the border when he couldn't not matter how hard his mind told his body cross it. He said that he made the cowardly decision and decided to take the path of least resistance and go to war. Before reading this book i never thought of courage like this. O'Brien's definition is a much simpler definition than the traditional one but it is still very powerful and i agree with it.
This book was an amazing piece of literature that combined fascinating descriptions of the war with revolutionary new ideas about courage and how the soldier's backgrounds effected their actions during the war. This book was a refreshing new war to look at the war and in my opinion a lot more insightful and moving than others that i have read.