Tim O'Brien Response

The Things They Carried

Being an avid fan of war stories, and enjoying reading history surrounding the different wars and conflicts the United States has been involved in, I was extremely excited to be able to read “The Thing They Carried” as part of the curriculum for the English 102 course. As stated in the assignment for week 5, this book does have some graphic parts, and some language. I enjoy the writing in this book more than I did in “The Sandstorm” though. O’Brien seems to be a little better at writing for the reader to understand more than for a play, which is the type of writing I can read.

In the short story, “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien portrays a few different characters that seem to be based off his personal experience. Lieutenant Cross has his infatuation with Martha, who appears to be an old girlfriend of his. This is very interesting, because in the reading I have done on the Vietnam conflict, the soldiers used any way they could to get their minds off of the hell they were in. This was made evident in page 6 where they spoke about “smoking the dead man’s dope” (O’Brien 6). The soldiers used the drugs of the dead man to help them cope with being in Vietnam, while Lieutenant Cross used Martha to cope. All the men had dreams of being back home, which is understandable. I would not personally want to be in Vietnam, especially with never knowing when you would be attacked.

After reading the short story, “The Things They Carried,” I will definitely be reading more of the book, even if it isn’t assigned for the course. This book is well written and has some good detail to help the reader become more involved in what the situations were.

http://www.vietnam-war.info/facts/