The Importance Of War In Tim They Carried By Tim O Brien

This first chapter sets a precedent for the rest of the book. It establishes a selection of ideas used by Tim O’Brien to explain how war really is and how it can change the people who are experiencing it. He begins by listing what the solider carry literally, which included grenades, protective poncho, the uniform, rations for food, and the 5-lb. hat. These items and many more listed served as literal representations of the weights the soldiers carry as a result of the war. He introduces the main characters including lieutenant Jimmy Cross who is “in love” with a girl named Martha from back home carries a photo of her, Ted Lavender who carried tranquilizer pills and drugs, Kiowa who carries a hunting hatchet, Henry Dobbins who a carries extra

These were the real burdens that weighed the soldiers down. These emotions exhausted their strength, their discipline, and their bravery. Fear and death were out of the men’s control. Therefore, “they carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing—these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight [to the men]. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture. They carried their reputations. They carried the soldier 's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to.” The moved like mules carrying the weight of the Vietnam war. They tried to justify their actions performed during this time. The soldiers tried to rationalize their inhumanity brought out by war. Ultimately, they were trying to survive. They were trying to make it back home when they knew they would never be the same men as before. They were scared but walked around and carried the war on a courageous front. Often, these men were carried each other with unconscious support. They were brothers in arms. The men next to him understood what he was going through. “They shared the weight of memory. They took up what others could no longer bear. Often, they carried each other, the wounded or weak.” They carried things that plagued their mind. The war was everything they carried. Tim O’Brien outlines all of these points to show the true meaning of war. What it felt like to be in Vietnam and the damage it caused to the men while they coped. They couldn’t escape what they “carried” because “the single [was an] abiding certainty that they