The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

Civil War General Sherman once said, War is hell. He was right. In the short story The Things They Carried, Tim OBrien shows us the hell that our soldiers suffered. The storyteller shows us a captivating, and up-close story about our soldiers in the Vietnam War. While the designation relates to the story about things carried, but the soldiers carry more than just the sensible burdens-in many cases, they be weighed down by stirred up baggage. The emotional baggage that lies heavy in their hearts outweighs the physical weight. In addition to the items that they essential carry, they also carry personal me custodytos.To show how much the soldiers are carrying the fabricator tells us things carried were largely determined by necessity. Some of the necessities included, P-38 can opener, paper bag knivescandy, cigarettesC rations and two or three canteen of water. Together, these items weighed between cardinal and twenty pounds The narrator goes on to give us even more detail ab out the things the soldiers carried . carried the standard M-16 gas-operated assault rifle. The weapon weighed 7. 5 pounds unloaded, 8. 2 pounds with its full twenty-round magazine. grenade launcher, 5. pounds unloaded By telling us incisively what the men carried and how much it weighed, it gives us an insight on the physical burdens that the men had to carry. The narrator tells us that the intangible items that these men carried proved heavier than any rucksack and gun. The main character in the story is Lieutenant Cross, platoon leader. He is in love with a new-fangled girl in the United States.She is invariably on his mind and because he allows his thoughts to take him away and be with her. Because of this, he blames himself for the death of an different platoon member even though there was zip he could have done to protect him. Lieutenant Cross mat the pain. He blamed himself. He pictured Marthas smooth young face, thinking he loved her more than anything, more than his men, and now Ted chromatic was dead because he love her so much and could not layover thinking about her. I think here he is creation a little unreasonable. His love for her didnt kill Lavender. He didnt feel tho the burden of being responsible for Lavenders death, it was the burden of being alive. They all carried great emotional weight. They carried all the emotional baggage of the men who might die.Grief, terror, love, longing-these were the intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. With all the physical and emotional things they carried, they also carried things that were close to their hearts. They carried mementos and other small weapons. Mitchell Sanders carried brass knuckles. Kiowa carried his grandfathers feathered hatchet. Kiowa always took along his spic-and-span TestamentLee Strunk carried his slingshot ammo, he claimed, would never be a problem. Were told that Lieutenant Cross carried letters from Mart ha in his rucksack, and pictures of her in his billfold and a pebble. Lieutenant Cross received a good-luck charm from Martha. It was a simple pebble, an ounce at most. These things, although that was something else they carried, I feel like that, these items are things that made them feel like there was a world away the war. They carried a silent awe of the power of the weapons, which kept them alive by killing the enemy. They carried infection, the weak or wounded, the thumbs of slain Viet Cong, guilt, and the soil of Vietnam itself. Perhaps the only certainty of a rather ambiguous war was that there would never be a shortage of things to carry.