Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

he Things They Carried is a nonfiction book written by Tim O’Brien. It was first published in 1990 and became critically acclaimed shortly after its release. The book itself is a novel comprised of short war stories from the Vietnam conflict. It reflects mainly on the individual aspects of soldiers like the impact of casualties, internal conflict, visitors, and the lives of soldiers after the war, rather than a liberal summary of the Vietnam War. This results in exceptional looks at perspective and character development throughout the story, something that is difficult to achieve when given such a broad topic such as a war. Throughout the book, O’Brien reflected on many personal interpretations of the war, some being physical, spiritual, and

With each of the objects they carried being listed along with its exact weight and meaning to the soldier. One of these patrolling soldiers was the paranoid soul Ted Lavender, who kept an ever abundant supply of tranquilizers and marijuana on him at all times to control his “Anxiety”. Unfortunately though, while taking a whiz Mr. Lavender was shot and killed. Something far from the stereotypical death thought of in war time. Later on their commanding officer blames his personal obsession with a girl in the U.S.A. caused him to lose focus, and eventually cause the demise of Lavender. Simply an example of how one war can strip people of things they held sacred before and replace it with life and death

Many of the stories are based around the mentality of war. How in society's perception, war is a chance for men to be brave a make themselves into the most noble of heroes, where in reality men are simply thrown into a situation where their main priority is to save themselves. Like in this “Situation”, a man sees a grenade thrown near his platoon, so the brave soldier in an act of sacrifice jumps on it. This of course would absorb the explosion saving his comrades, wrong. The grenade was an anti vehicular charge that not only kills the man, but kills all the men in front, behind and to the side. That's war, it’s not brave, it’s not beautiful, it's just a world of shit. A world where boys are grabbed and told to fight, to protect their country in a jungle an ocean away. War’s