October 20

Blog #79 – Vietnam in Fiction

Tim O’Brien’s book, The Things They Carried, focuses on the members of Alpha Company as they hump across Vietnam and also how they dealt with civilian life (“Speaking of Courage”). 

1. The things that the soldiers carried in battle were not just physical things but mental / emotional as well.  Henry Dobbins wore his girlfriend’s pantyhose around his neck as a comforter.  But after the war is over and done with, the soldiers, like Lt. Cross, carry guilt and pain around with them.  How did the soldiers cope with being in combat?

2. The novel is also about truth, especially with the story, “How to Tell a True War Story,” which seems contradictory in many cases.  But maybe that’s what the truth really is in a war-time environment – unclear.   Why isn’t the truth always clear, especially as shown as in the novel?

3. The novel also captures loneliness and isolation experienced by the American soldiers while in the Vietnamese jungle.  Though the soldiers are surrounded by their comrades in arms, many don’t feel a connection to each other.  Could this be because they’ve been drafted into a war they don’t want to fight?  Or that war is the most loneliest experience – do or die on the battlefield?

4. How does shame or the idea of letting another person down motivate Tim and other soldiers in the stories?

“They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment.”

300 words minimum – pick two of the above questions and include an assessment of the book.  

DUE Thursday night 11:59 p.m.  October 22.  

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Posted October 20, 2015 by geoffwickersham in category Blogs

82 thoughts on “Blog #79 – Vietnam in Fiction

  1. Matt August

    In The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, there are four significant characters whose outlook and their ultimate end in the war appear to be largely determined by the physical objects they carry. In the first three cases we have three characters who retained objects from their previous lives which seem to foreshadow emotional suffering and tragic death or injury. Throughout the entire novel, Lt. Cross carries with him the guilt of the deaths of the members in his platoon, despite having little or no relationship with them. This is exemplified with his obsession with a girl named Martha who doesn’t love him back. Ted Lavender carries tranquilizers and marijuana; this symbolizes him trying to escape with no other way to cope with the War. In the end result he is killed in battle by being shot in the head while his head is not in the war. Rat Kiley is a medic who carries medical supplies, comic books, and grief of his fellow soldier’s death. Much like Ted Lavender he is trying to escape the realities of the war. In the end of the war he does escape his realties by shooting himself in the foot to escape. Henry Dobbins is unlike the previous three soldiers. He only carries positive items and feeling with him. The objects that he carries represent love, comfort, kindness, caring and nonviolence. For Dobbins the end of the war brought him home where he could live without violence. He had walked away from Vietnam with a positive and rational view.
    A theme that is present throughout the novel is that the truth is not always clear. The first example of this shown in the book is when even though the protagonist’s name is the author; the book is a piece of fiction and not someone’s actual experience. The most prominent example of blurring the truth is when the protagonist of the story tells about how he killed a man in extreme detail. In a few chapters later, he tells that he didn’t really kill the man but the emotional grief he went through when he saw the body was the equivalent to killing a man. The reason I feel as if he is writing with a thin line between fiction and reality is to symbolize the confusion and chaos of war.
    Personally, this book is written beautifully and has emotional impact and weight in it. Unlike most novels today, the characters have interesting personalities and stories. I would recommend it to people who are interested in the Vietnam War and those who just desire a story about the human costs of war

  2. jacob smith

    So far I find The Things They Carried to be interesting and gripping overall. The way the characters react to the draft attacks and missions make you wonder how you or people that you know would react in a similar situation. The most fascinating parts to me is the great detail that Tim O’Brien goes into with the things that they carried and how they were used either practically or for comfort.

    1. The soldiers coped with being in combat in a variety of ways such as dark humor jokes, thinking about life back home and everyday rituals. When someone died rather than cry or mourn the soldiers learned to cope with jokes about what had happened. The seemingly most prominent way the soldiers coped was by thinking of what they planned or wanted to do when they got back home to their everyday lives. For instance Jimmy Cross was constantly thinking about Martha and was motivated to keep going to see her again. Finally the soldiers coped by going over rituals daily. One of these rituals is at the end of the day the troops would dig their foxholes, sit down and play checkers.

    4. The idea of letting another person down motivates the soldiers in multiple instances. One of these was when Tim was deciding whether he should run to Canada or stay and fight in the war, he was right on the border and could’ve crossed right there and he would not have had to fight and his war troubles would be gone. The only thing that kept him in America was the guilt and the fact that he could not stand the idea of his family thinking of him as a coward. This idea also kept them in the war because they thought on occasion about shooting off one of their fingers or toes and just going home. The reason that they didn’t was because they couldn’t have their comrades thinking of them as cowards, so instead of doing it they made fun of the people that did.

  3. Joe B

    1. In The Things They Carried, the true hardships of being an American soldier are displayed. The mental struggles they went through may have been even worse than the physical pains. After the war, these emotional battles became even greater as they were stricken with grief and a guilt that was eating them away. In order to cope with being in combat, the soldiers hold on to their special items in order to bear the burden of war. The items help to bring them back to a peaceful time or memory in which they were happy. However once they returned home, and all of their physical items and belongings were accessible, they were still haunted with their awful memories of the tragedy that war is. These men did not want to go into the war., they had to. They were not mentally prepared for the hardships they would go through and they paid the price for this. No one can be truly prepared for war, but especially not these men.
    3. Loneliness was one of the worst things the soldiers dealt with. Each and every soldier had a chance to die on the battlefield, and no matter how many soldiers there were going through the same thing, none could completely comfort one another. Also, because the soldiers were drafted into the war, and did not volunteer, it may have made it harder to connect with one another because if they had it their way, they would not have been there together. This also may have made it harder to build trustworthy relationships with fellow soldiers.
    Assessment: I think this novel is fantastic. I feel as if it helps me be more sympathetic towards veterans. I cannot feel the pain that they did, or fully walk in their shoes, but these stories bring me closer. I could connect with the fact that the soldiers carried personal items to ease their pain and fear. This novel also helps me understand the Vietnam War more in depth. The emotion captured in the stories describes what times were like during the devastating war.

  4. Ruby Kolender

    3. The war could be lonely for these men for certain reasons for each of them. For some of them, the war could definitely be lonely because they were drafted into it and did not want to fight. Considering that the men had nothing but their imaginations and thoughts on their minds during a war that they most likely did not support seems like they have a right to feel extremely lonesome, even with their comrades constantly at their side. With them at each others side, this means that they are all thinking these lonely thoughts together, thoughts that they will never see their family again or even just the lives that they used to live.
    4. The avoidance of shame and embarrassment are two huge reasons soldiers decide they should fight in the war instead of fleeing. This is because they feel that they would be judged really harshly by family and friends that they wouldn’t be able to meet the challenge, even though a lot of the people who were drafted did not want to fight because they did not support the war, just like Tim. Shame also motivates the soldiers in the war, because they make a lot of mistakes that allow them to want to continue so they can make up for their mess ups. For example, all the men blame themselves for Ted Lavender’s death. With that being said, this is yet another reason for the men to force themselves to stay strong during the war, considering they do not want there to be another death that they will feel like is their fault, and they also want to be able to win it for those who died in the war, along with their loved ones. As a final point, shame and embarrassment encourage these men during the war because they do not want to live with anymore shame than what they already have to deal with.
    I really enjoy this book for quite a few reasons, one being that I have never read anything like this before. I rarely ever enjoy or want to try reading something non-fiction, and I have also never read something about war. What I also think is neat it is how each chapter is its own separate story, rather than having everything connect like books I am used to reading, making it a very flexible read. I also like how it comes form Tim’s point of view, with him having actually been in the war. He writes with such truth and it seems like he is not holding anything back about what happened in the war, making it seem so vivid. What “The Things They Carried” is helping me realize, is how ordinary those men’s lives were prior to the war, where I would normally come to think that all of them had purposefully wanted to fight in the war, even though this is usually not the case. The only thing keeping them going sometimes is not that they want to stay alive for themselves, but they do it to avoid embarrassment of failure, and to make it back successfully for those they love and would do anything to go back home to. All of these stories in this book are so unique in their own way which makes this such a great read.

  5. Max C

    There are many reasons why the truth could be less clear than it seems, both literally and metaphorically. In the strictest literal sense, the soldiers did not know which people were VC and which were not, since their only identifying factor was whether they shot at the soldiers. This confusion was furthered by the VC’s practice of taking weapons from their fallen comrades, adding doubt to the American soldiers as to the truth of their orders. However, falsehoods reared their heads in other, less direct ways, such as the illusion of safety. O’Brien speaks of a time when one of his friends was walking through the forest, joking with someone when he set off a booby trap, launching him into a tree. While the area seemed safe, with no visible enemies or bullets whizzing by, it was still lethal.
    The idea of shame was a powerful motivation to the soldiers of Vietnam. In the Rainy River chapter, O’Brien talks about how he was not able to force himself to leave to Canada. He imagined people he cared about on the shores of the river, and couldn’t bring himself to let them down. Additionally, the idea of his friend triggering the booby trap appears to be important to him, since it was mentioned multiple times throughout one chapter. Another example is the soldiers who would shoot off a toe to get out of the combat. The soldiers would openly mock them, but O’Brien at least considered the option. It can be inferred that he didn’t do it because of the shame from his fellow soldiers.
    I believe that this book is an excellent account of war in general, and not just because of the fact it was written by a veteran. The pattern of the chapters, or rather lack thereof reflects the unpredictability of war. The book goes back and forth in time, before, during, and after the war mirroring the back and forth action of the war emphasized most strongly by the Tet offensive. The apparent victors of the war switched back and forth, much like the focus and time period of the book. Overall, I think this is a very engaging and unique take on war in general.

  6. Maggie Bills

    I personally enjoy the book “The Things They Carried” because not only is it a book about how awful and lonely war can be, but it’s also about the people and how they were dealing with being away from home, dealing with the loneliness, and how they got through the war. Some died and others carried guilt around for years. I really thought these stories were eye-opening for how war can affect people in different ways and how some people get through a day of carrying certain things.
    The soldiers were all very different men all thrown into the same situation. This particular situation, The Vietnam War, was hard physically and mentally. The book made it seem impossible to get through it alone. At the start of the chapter it really focused on the actual things they had to carry, such as supplies varying from rations and clothing to drugs or comic books. As the story went on it began to open up the emotional things the men carried, for example memories from home. Lt Jimmy Cross was in love with a girl from home, Martha. He carried his undying love for Martha. Cross used Martha to cope with being in combat instead of with her. Some parts really show how he wanted to be at home with her, including when he would lick the envelopes of her letters, knowing her tongue had been there. Which personally is a bit creepy but… Later in the book we meet a young soldier who was obsessed with finding the picture of his ex-girlfriend because he needed a single picture to make him keep going and he didn’t know how he would keep going without it.
    I think that the soldiers don’t feel a connection with the other soldiers for many reasons. One being the soldiers may feel isolated because war is considered the loneliest place on earth, especially when the soldiers are against the war that they are fighting in. War is an awful place to be in reality and in the mind. Having a “war mindset” separates you from trying to make friends or relate to other people that are fighting with you. Another reason why the soldiers may not connect to each other is because they won’t allow themselves to become friends with anyone. Maybe because they knew there was a chance of them dying or they could be protecting others from heartbreak when they die or are severely wounded.

  7. Isaac Thompson

    The Things They Carried Blog
    I have really enjoyed the novel The Things They Carried because I have found it a very intriguing novel that provides a lot of detail into the story that allows you to imagine what the war literally felt like. It put yourselves in the shoes of the soldiers and made you realize how grateful we are to live in our time period. Since the soldiers in the Vietnam War were drafted, they had no intentions of their involvement in the military. No one wants to be in Vietnam and certainly no one wants to be a war hero. Inside, they all are lonely and have an ambition to get out of the war and go home. This book gives almost the opposite of what you want to hear about the war, because it gives you the raw detail of it, and how brutally horrible the war was. This makes me realize how well I should live my life because if I was placed in a more disciplined time period, I could be involved in something as severe as a war when I am 18.
    1) Like I said before, the soldiers in the novel The Things They Carrie did not volunteer to be in the war, they were selected through a draft. I believe the soldiers coped with the war in numerous ways. One way, being smoking whatever the soldiers could get their hands on, whether it be Marijuana or tobacco that they find on fallen soldiers, or supply plants etc. The traumatization they have dealt with throughout the war must be excruciating to attempt to forget. Some soldiers in the soldiers, like you said in the example, bring possessions from their old lives to remind them of what they would come home to. This gives the motivation to endure the pain, and push through the combat to fight for their country and their survival.
    4) The thought of shame on Obrien and his comrades only gives them more motivation to fulfill their duty as the U.S military. The soldiers made no effort to be involved in the war, but ever since they were drafted, they have begun to understand that is their duty to fight for their country and failure to do this could bring shame to the United States army and to their government, and the soldiers did everything in their power to make sure that this did not happen. As said in the book, some soldiers would intentionally injure themselves so they could be sent home back to their friends and family. If someone was caught injuring themselves they would most definitely be shamed upon, since it would be identifying them as someone that would never sacrifice their life for anyone else.

  8. Marcus Powell

    Many soldiers in the company tried to think of the war as a place where either you or the enemy. Some soldiers in the Alpha Company, like Lt. Cross, were filled with guilt because of the loved ones at home. For example, Lt. Cross wrote letters to the girl he loved in college to keep in touch knowing that she didn’t feel the same way. He tried his best to keep his sanity in this way but eventually let go knowing it was just a lie since he thought he was distracted by her and his men were dying. Kiowa thought of the war by killing others or he would be killed. But many after the war tried to cope with the combat with writing war stories. The soldiers remember their horrific past to put down on paper so others may know what happened. Others try to go back to their old lives but they see that as their lives were needed elsewhere, their home life changed and it could never be the same. The truth isn’t always clear in these stories because many things could have happened to these men while they’re out in the war. Some may be shocked by what they’ve seen, scarred forever and things could’ve been a blur while others could be perfectly fine and still normal. These stories are just the perspectives of these soldiers which will be different per person so there can’t be one real story for what happened because the experience isn’t going to be the same. Multiple things could affect how someone viewed or felt or dealt with an experience.
    Overall I love this book and the characters are extremely dynamic in their own way yet they come together perfectly. Use this book for other classes in years to come they’ll enjoy it.

  9. Ro

    As I continue to move through this book I find it more and more interesting to read. I think reading first person accounts of what actually happened can help you understand the war more and you get to see the experiences and lifestyles of the young men at war. It is also a really sad and heart-wrenching novel. Everyone knows that death is apart of war and that some of your best friends could die instantly at any moment. But that doesn’t mean you can prepare for death. Tim O’Brien portrays this feeling when he recalls Ted Lavender dying. He recites what Kiowa says, that he was dead instantly and he hit the ground so fast, like cement or concrete. Stories like these help you understand the emotional side of everyone move in a war. You can’t learn this stuff from a textbook. Your normal history class doesn’t give you such a vivid image of war, first hand. The soldiers carried many things, as Tim O’Brien says, such as guns, ponchos, claymores, knives, canteens and rations. They also carried personal items that comforted them along the way. Jimmy Cross carried a pebble given to him by this girl that he loves named Martha. One way the soldiers coped with the war was by carrying a piece of their pre-war life, their home. The pebble wasn’t just a stone that Cross had carried, it meant something to him. It was a different life, a more peaceful, loving life that he carried with him. It was a reminder that even though he was as far away as he was from home, he still carried a little bit of his old life. And that is comforting to have. Another way they coped with war was by sometimes making it seem like their wasn’t one to begin with. These men built families and friendships. A brotherhood. Bob Kiley, or Rat was one of O’Brien’s friends and he wrote this letter about one of their buddies, Curt Lemon, that had died. Rat wrote this letter back home to the guy’s sister to talk about how great of a person Lemon was. He tells stories about what the guys did to have fun. Even though they were at war, they stuck together as a unit. The friendships they formed help ease the pain and struggle of everyday Vietnam. The truth isn’t always clear because your emotions and the speed at which everything, more specifically death, happens so fast. War stories are hard to tell, says O’Brien. He says that a true and factual war story is one that the listener might not completely believe. When he talked about how Lemon died, he said that instead of seeing his death as a whole, he only got glimpses and pictures in his mind. After it was all over instead of having a clear understanding on the situation, you really just have a small idea of what happened and that you find yourself piecing the information together. He says that when you try and recite a story like the death of Lemon, that it feels so unreal that it is hard to tell the story but when in reality, this is the painful and hard, exact truth.

    I answered questions 1 and 2 by the way.

  10. Vanessa H

    #3: Even though the soldiers are surrounded by their comrades, many of them still feel lonely and don’t have a connection with their fellow soldiers. This could be for a variety of reasons, including that they were in a war that they didn’t want to fight. Some, like O’Brien probably considered escaping to a different country to avoid the draft. However, they most likely felt too ashamed to say anything, or to find anyone to relate to, so they distanced themselves from the others and kept to themselves. Some may be against the war and forced to fight, which would make them feel angry towards many things which would result in them estranging themselves from their other comrades out of anger. Their loneliness could also stem from how the soldiers coped with death, which would vary from soldier to soldier. Some could distance themselves from their comrades, that way their death wouldn’t affect them as badly, while others may want to completely cut themselves off emotionally from everything involving the war. The reason why these soldiers felt lonely despite being surrounded by their comrades differs from soldier to soldier, with a wide range of varying reasoning.
    #4: The idea of shame, or letting someone down, motivates O’Brien and the other soldiers throughout the book, and shows up multiple times throughout the soldiers’ stories. One time this motivation occurs is when O’Brien faces the dilemma of whether or not he should escape to Canada to avoid the draft, or go fight in the Vietnam War. O’Brien spends quite a bit of time worrying about his decision, but ultimately ends up going to war, since he felt that if he did leave for Canada he’d be too embarrassed to face his family, friends, and country. Another soldier motivated by shame would Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, who blamed himself for the death of Ted Lavender. Cross felt that he had let everyone down, including himself, Lavender, and the rest of his men. After Lavender’s death, Cross vows to himself to stop thinking about his love, Martha, and to keep his men in line so that no more unnecessary deaths could occur. Motivation by shame or letting someone down is a common type of motivation among the soldiers written about in O’Brien’s book.

  11. Emma L

    The soldiers in The Things They Carried had their fair share of emotional and physical baggage. This book starts out as a mere documentation of the essentials these soldiers “humped” through Vietnam but it delves into something much more. The author goes into detail about the emotions that each of the men in the Alpha Company felt while they were fighting the Vietcong. Some of the emotions are positive; peace, wonder, cheerfulness but many of them are scarier than that. Most men carried guilt, sometimes even shame from their actions in the war. The men coped with this by making jokes. Their jokes were horrible, but they got them through the horrible situations they were put in. The men also clung to objects or letters from home, the pantyhose was just one example of this desperation for a normal existence.
    Vietnam was dangerous; many lost their limbs, their sanity, and even their lives in the endless fight. The threat of death was always at the back of the soldiers in the Alpha Company’s minds. It was terrifying; the idea that you might not make it back home to your sweetheart or your family was a constant thought running through the minds of those in Vietnam. Strangely enough, there was a worse fear running rampant through the jungles and paddies of Vietnam; the threat of shame. Soldiers went into the war to avoid shame, they killed innocent civilians to avoid shame, and they even died to avoid shame. In the minds of those fighting, being thought of as weak or as a quitter was worse than any offense committed in the foreign land they were all imprisoned in. Soldiers didn’t want to die dishonorably, they didn’t want to let their comrades down, and they didn’t want their families to have to deal with their shortcomings. This fear pushed Tim O’Brien and his comrades to obey orders and to sometimes do the unthinkable.
    I believe that The Things They Carried is a great book. I especially like the juxtaposition of the solid facts with the emotional baggage written about in the first chapter. Tim O’Brien makes his characters, his comrades, into real, tangible people. When I read the short stories in this book, I feel the hopelessness, the desperation, the peacefulness, the hope that all of the characters are feeling. I also like that it tells a story from right in the middle of the madness. I feel that I can understand Vietnam way better through the stories of Kioka’s moccasins and Bible than through any solid facts I would be given. Tim O’Brien also uses brilliant symbolism throughout his book; he shows rather than tells the emotions that the soldiers were feeling. The story of Henry Dobbins and the pantyhose that he always carried provides a much more real feel to the desperation of those fighting and it paints a picture of the war that I would not find in a textbook. I appreciate the raw emotions sewn throughout the seemingly boring details that Tim O’Brien states. I enjoy the realness and the honesty that The Things They Carried includes and I believe that it is because of these truthful touches that this book is so good.

  12. Frances V.W.

    Reflection:
    I really enjoy reading the book The Things They Carried, and find the book very interesting. I feel like it tells a very realistic and down to earth story about the Vietnam War. I also like that it connects to what we are talking about in class, I like being able to read a line and say “I remember learning about this!” When we first began to read The Things They Carried I was skeptical, I don’t usually read or enjoy books about war, but The Things They Carried pleasantly surprised me, and I find myself unable to put it down.

    #1. There are many different ways to deal with the pressure, guilt, and pain that come with war; the soldiers in The Things They Carried cope with it by telling jokes. Telling jokes helps the soldiers take the edge off what they were doing, and the deaths of their friends. They also coped with being in combat by carrying around good luck tokens and preforming ‘rituals’. For example, Lieutenant Cross carried around a picture of Martha, a girl he liked, and a pebble she had sent him. The small repetitive ‘rituals’ the soldiers would perform daily also helped them cope with the war because it gave the soldiers a sense of routine, and grounded them.

    #4. Shame and the possibility of letting someone down, especially someone you love are both useful tools when trying to motivate someone. Shame of losing to a small country heavily motivates the soldiers, especially after the large promises Presidents have made, and America’s reputation. Losing to the Vietnamese, especially during the Cold War would be a big blow to the American people. Letting someone down, specifically someone you care about also motivates the soldiers. The soldiers don’t want to let down the people they care for by dying in Vietnam.

  13. Scotti P.

    The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a fascinating book that gives insight into what soldiers dealt with during the Vietnam war. Although it is fiction, I believe that it gives a new perspective to an event that is difficult to imagine. I have enjoyed the chapters we have read so far because they are descriptive and the author uses excellent imagery. My favorite scene so far is in the chapter titled “Spin” where the soldiers are playing checkers. It shows one way in which they coped with their surroundings that were unorganized and had no rules. This provided them with something they had control over. It gave the soldiers something that was “orderly and reassuring.” This book shows the physical and emotional struggles people in Vietnam faced which is quite interesting. I have had many realizations while reading because I was unaware of just how hard is was to deal with being away from a normal life.
    1) I cannot fathom the emotional and physical things that the soldiers carried with them during the Vietnam War. In the first chapter, it talks about the physical things they carried such as food and weapons but occasionally it will mention an emotional thing they carry with them like ghosts and memories. There are various ways in which the soldiers cope with this emotional baggage. Tim O’Brien writes stories in order to deal with his feelings, whether they are guilt, shame or fear. Ted Lavender thinks of a woman back home who sends him letters to forget about the danger they are constantly in. In general, I feel like all of the soldiers find things to think about to distract themselves from the severity of the situation. Like I mentioned in my assessment, two soldiers would play checkers every night until it became dark. This is a normal activity that may have been done at home, in a normal situation, which makes me think that they are trying to forget about their reality.
    3) It is very clear that the soldiers do not feel a connection to one another even though they are in the same situation. I believe that they do not feel a connection to each other because they are fighting a war that they do not want to fight. During the chapter “On the Rainy River”, O’Brien tells the story of what he experienced after he got his draft notice. In a way, he ran away from it because he felt as though he was “too good” for the war. He does not agree with the war and even took a stance against it in college. Since the soldiers were drafted and did not volunteer, I have concluded that this made them resist the idea that the war was reasonable. Some of them probably thought that the war was unreasonable before they were drafted which just made tensions grow stronger. They may have not felt a connection with each other is because they did not want to. Death was always a possibility and the soldiers most likely felt that if they got too close, they would be more hurt if that person got killed. Another possibility is that the soldiers did not want to hurt other people if they got killed. There are endless amounts of reasons that they felt isolated. I am unsure of who wouldn’t feel the same way.

  14. Aldo Buttazzoni

    So far I am really enjoying the book, “The Things They Carried”. I really like it because like the blog said, it shows what they carried, physically and mentally. It really shows what a war can do to a person, and the relationships people make during times like these, especially when those people in the war don’t agree with being in it in the first place. This story really captures the essence of the war and the fact isn’t always what it seems to be on the outside which is guns and death and destruction but more emotion thing like love and losing things you love and the heartbreak that comes with creating bonds with your comrades that might die any moment. Even with these soldiers being together for such a long time, some of them don’t feel a connection to each other and don’t bond. This could be in most part because they don’t agree with the war. I think for those people, they just want to get through the war and not concentrate even little on it. Many of these soldiers also lose comrades and friends in battle which could be part of the reason for they’re resistant to bonding, why make a relationship with someone who is most likely going to die? These soldiers find themselves lonely and emotionally and mentally scared and changed forever and even after the war. When soldiers do bond and become close they sometimes find themselves feeling guilty for not saving some people. In this way Tim is motivated to not let anyone else in his platoon die. When one of his soldiers got shot and killed he blamed himself for not ding anything because he was too distracted by the thought of the girl he loved back home. After his soldier died it really ate him up and made him feel guilty for a while. This is why he doesn’t want this to happen again to anther soldier so he has to g through the mental and emotional exhaustion again.

  15. McKenna Moosekian

    They probably don’t feel a connection to one another because they are fighting a war that they have no passion for. When people fight in a war they bond because they are both fighting for what they believe in, but these men don’t even want to fight in this war so they have no bond, no connection. They were drafted into this war which made them feel lonely and angry. So while the war was going on that’s all they thought about they weren’t worried about making friends or connecting with their fellow army mates. They were focusing on the fact that they were fighting a fight that they knew they were bound to lose. They also probably knew that there was a huge chance of death in this situation and why would you want to come close to someone to just end up seeing them die in the end? Why would you want to build a relationship and just have it crumble before you eyes? They were probably just saving themselves from that. The shame or the idea of letting another person down motivated Tim and other soldiers because they don’t want to be those guys that are afraid. They don’t want to be made a fool because if they were a coward they were branded a fool. These men thought that if they didn’t go in and fight and risk there lives that people would judge them and see them as nothing, but and boy and not a man. They thought that dying in the war was better than dying of embarrassment of being to afraid and to cowardly to go into Vietnam. So instead of people giving them crap for not going into the war and not doing their “duty” as a citizen they decided that it would be better to go into the war to die then face those kinds of problems back home, which is utterly grotesque.

  16. Kristen Harvey

    I thought that the book “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brian gave me a new perspective of war, before this I never really understood what they went through. It reminds me that people even today are fighting for our country, putting their lives on the line and going through similar emotions. I thought it was interesting how different people reacted differently to tragedy in war, I was very distraught when Rat Kiley released his anger by shooting a baby water buffalo many times, killing him in a very inhumane, and horrifying way, demonstrating how much pain these men go through, changing them forever. This book is really good as it takes you through the trenches of Vietnam, and the minds of the soldiers.
    1. In this book it tell how the soldiers coped with being in war, many brought photo and objects from the people they loved. They also brought memories about life before the war to remember what they are trying to survive to go back to. These men carried a lot of fear, of death as well as trauma for what they witnessed. Even small comforts from home like a rock given to Cross from his one love Martha which kept his mind occupied while walking through the jungle, with thoughts of how she found it and what she looked like. These men had to carry a lot both physical and mentally but simple reminders of what they were living for helped them stay motivated to continue to fight.
    4. In the book the thought of letting others down others and shame motivated the men. The men were constantly facing death, if they were to die they would want to die with honor while protecting their country. But they also did not want to be the cause of one of their friends death. After Kiowa was killed, O’Brian carried the guilt as he thought he could have done more to help his friend from dying. These men wanted to help win the war for the US and South Vietnam, beat the Communists in North Vietnam and the Viet Cong. They did not want to let their country down, so they hiked very long distances with gargantuan amounts of supplies. Those men went through a lot and tried hard to survive it all without letting anyone else down while trying to maintain their pride.

  17. Victoria Lurz

    As we have read parts of the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’brien I have learned many things about the Vietnam war and about wars themselves. I really enjoy reading this novel because we the readers, are learning the hardships and brutality faced throughout war and in extremely graphic detail. The first question I will be answering is number 2. I have learned from these stories that the truth is so hard to come by because in these incredible circumstances things aren’t always what they appear/seem to be. Rat Kiley saw his best friend get blown up meanwhile, seconds before, he and his pal were messing around with a few other guys. It is in these unimaginable circumstances that we forget details and dramatize certain actions. When you are not in a stable state of mind, information and observations tend to be seen in a different form. The chapter “How To Tell A True War Story” may seem contradictory but then again in war, nothing is clear. Most things are actually unclear therefore it is not likely to hear a true war story because surviving such crazy circumstances will mess with your mind. I will also be addressing question number 3. This novel beautifully captures the loneliness and isolation experienced by the soldiers fighting in the Vietnamese jungle by bringing the readers into their point of view. Even though the soldiers are surrounded by fellow comrades, they feel an emptiness because they are in life threatening situations away from their loved ones and instead with a bunch of men they don’t know very well. Also most of these men were drafted into the war so they really do not want to be there. When you are somewhere you don’t want to be with people you aren’t close to, you can feel like the loneliest person in the world. Many men who were drafted, didn’t support the Vietnam war. This brings many people together who are now putting their lives on the line for something they do not support in a place they do not want to be can make anyone feel lonely. Isolated from the real world and now fighting day by day in a land you do not know is terrifying. Combine all these factors and it’s almost impossible not to feel isolated or alone. Thus far I really enjoy the book and am intrigued by all the insight I have received.

  18. Elizabeth

    Q. The things that the soldiers carried in battle were not just physical things but mental / emotional as well. Henry Dobbins wore his girlfriend’s pantyhose around his neck as a comforter. But after the war is over and done with, the soldiers, like Lt. Cross, carry guilt and pain around with them. How did the soldiers cope with being in combat?

    A.I believe that the soldiers copes with being Kombat in their own different ways. One way was when they shot the baby water Buffalo. Even though it was a sad ending for the Buffalo it helps the soldiers release their stress and anger for the loss of their friend. I also believe that when they’re in combat they grow attached to an idea or concept of good. Jimmy cross Carried letters and a picture of a girl named Martha, this was his good that he I focused on throughout the war. I believe this thing or concept, whether it be a photo or letters or any other keepsake, to keep their sanity. I also believe that the soldiers keep their sanity by making jokes or pushing the reality away. This may be why they tell stories. So that they can change their “reality”.

    Q. The novel is also about truth, especially with the story, “How to Tell a True War Story,” which seems contradictory in many cases. But maybe that’s what the truth really is in a war-time environment – unclear. Why isn’t the truth always clear, especially as shown as in the novel?

    A. the truth isn’t always clear for many reasons. One of the reasons is because they are stories, each person tells the story in a different way, and so one story is different depending on who you hear it from. Another reason why the truth is unclear is because many don’t want to believe the horrors of war, so they make a version where it’s not so gruesome or horrible. The man who lived in the stories were most likely shaken by the war that they were fighting. This leads to corrupted versions of stories, or unclear truths. In the novel they talk about how they would tell the stories but add what is considered normal details. “Often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn’t, because the normal stuff is necessary to make you believe the truly incredible craziness.” Many hide the truth to protect others.

  19. John Doyle

    I enjoyed this book a lot, mainly because it is unlike any other war book I have read. Typically, when you read a book about war, it glorifies violence and sacrifice for your fellow soldiers, while forgetting what brought them there. The Things They Carried does an excellent job of showing that even rugged soldiers are still human and have emotions, just like everyone else. The book goes into detail about how the men were unsure of the cause, how many of them left other things behind to come serve, even if unintentionally, and how even when surrounded by a dozen of your comrades on the other side of the world, you can still feel alone.

    1) The soldiers in Vietnam coped with being in combat in a number of ways. They would loot things off of bodies for their own use, such as tobacco or marijuana, crack off-color jokes with each other, and carry sentimental possessions from back home on them at all times. Since the majority of the men were selected from the draft (the average age being 19), the majority of them did not want to be there and did not support the war, but acknowledged that they were needed and did their duty. Quite often the soldiers would do things that were not necessarily examples of good morals, but considering the stress that they were put under in such short notice, the things they saw, the things their commanding officers instructed them to do, it is easy to see how anyone could be driven to such things (like cutting the toe off of a corpse and carrying it with you). Away from base, the soldiers could only carry so much weight on them –hence the title – so they would have to prioritize rations and other necessities over other items. In one instance, a soldier blamed someone in his platoon for stealing his jackknife. The two men got into a fistfight, and the accused thief had his nose broken. The attacker became so paranoid that the victim was going to retaliate that he took the butt of his pistol and smashed his face until his nose was too, broken. The man, after mutilating himself, showed the soldier he attacked and asked if they were even now. In the end, it is revealed that the soldier did indeed take his jackknife, though the threat of him retaliating was very real considering that they were in the middle of a jungle and heavily armed.

    4) The idea of shame is apparent throughout the book, especially with characters like Tim O’Brien, who was very close to fleeing to Canada – like many others had – to avoid being sent off to fight in a war he did not believe in via the draft. The theme of shame goes both ways, because you could have felt ashamed of yourself for dodging the draft and letting some other young man go to battle, or also because you allowed yourself to be a pawn for the government instead of standing up for your own beliefs. For Tim, he decided to stay in the United States and be enlisted as a soldier. His decision was understandable, considering the pressures of a man’s role, being that if you do not go to the front lines for your country, you are a coward, especially considering the reputation of the United States’ military. These are the same men who stormed the beaches or Normandy to re-take France from Germany, the same men who took Iwo Jima from Japan and proudly raised our flag, and the same men who went faced off at Gettysburg, resulting in over fifty thousand casualties. The United States Military has a worldwide reputation for showing no fear or hesitation, and to intentionally avoid having the honor of joining is unpatriotic and shameful.

  20. Elizabeth

    I really enjoyed the book and things they carried. It shows the trauma and the trouble that soldiers go through during war. It doesn’t give you the vague overview of a soldier’s life in war, but it does give you the actual details and events of a soldier’s life. I believe that Tim O’Brien has a great way of showing the way that a soldier is changed throughout his time in war. It gives you an eerie haunting feeling. The book gives you a new perspective on what it’s like to be a soldier in war. I also enjoyed this book because it didn’t show at the view of just one soldier, but instead showed the perspective of other soldiers. I thought it was interesting to see how certain people dealt with their grief of losing comrades in war. I also like the fact that the book is broken up into short stories, this gives the reader in different parts of one war. I believe that Tim O’Brien did an amazing job at describing on the psychological and physical trauma that the soldiers went through.

  21. Katie Westerlund

    Assessment:
    This book is ok. I cannot really relate to The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien. In theory it is good, I like the stories and I find them somewhat interesting, but there really isn’t a part of me that looks forward to reading this book every night. I love reading don’t get me wrong, but something about this book I just don’t like. I understand that we are reading it because we have been studying the Vietnam War, but quite honestly I just don’t really want to read it. It is cool in the sense that this is unlike anything I have read before and it is relatively interesting, but I just don’t like hearing of men crying and dying on the battlefield. I know that in life I need to hear about these things but right now I would rather read my teen-romance and sci-fi books.

    Answers to Questions 1 and 2:
    In the novel, The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, the soldiers carry much physical and emotional baggage. The majority of the first chapter is about what the soldiers carry. “In addition to the three standard weapons-the M-60, M-16, and M-79- they carried whatever presented itself, or whatever seemed appropriate as a means of killing or staying alive”, (page 7) as soldiers they carried whatever they were told to and then some. If they saw something they needed they picked it up and put it in their bag. Emotional baggage, though, is another thing. People, in general, have a hard time staying away from friends, family, and loved ones for a long time. These men were drafted into the Vietnam War for 12 months; this caused many of them to miss their people dearly. Lieutenant Cross seemed to have the hardest time dealing with his emotional baggage. He loved a girl, Martha, very much but she did not love him back. He also had a very hard time dealing with the death of Lavender and it caused him to rethink what the war and Martha mean to him. Prior to this though, LT Cross would read letters from Martha everyday and would look at her picture all the time. He would sit and dream up scenarios where they ended up together. Jimmy Cross also received a small pebble from her and he would put it in his mouth all day as a reminder of her, but then one day after Lavender’s death he burned the letters and through out the rock. He decided he didn’t love her, but he hated her. Lieutenant Cross struggled with all these things to distract himself from the war. He felt bad about it but it also gave if something else to think about, something to help him cope with the war. The story of a real war story is another thing. Truth is a tricky subject. You have The Truth, Semi-Truth, and No-Truth. It can sometimes be hard to tell which is which and in “How to Tell a True War Story,” we, the readers, learn how to tell a true story so people will believe it. In the book, O’Brien talks about how if the story makes you feel good then it is not a true war story. Most war stories seem unrealistic and are truly awful, but very true. Also, when telling a true war story, people will make some parts more relatable to the listener, adding in sections that can be seen in someone’s everyday life at home to make it seem more real. Sometimes the truth isn’t clear because it can seem made up. If I begin to tell a wild story about where I went last weekend and how my friends and I were hiking and we found a waterfall that had a cave on the other side and inside the cave there was a bear and that bear chased us out of the cave and almost got us but somehow we survived, to be honest you probably wouldn’t believe me. But the thing is, it might have actually happened. That’s where the truth becomes a shaky subject, is it real or is it fake and how can you tell? I suppose it is for you, the listener, to decide the difference between the truth and the lies.

  22. Natalia M

    So far, I have enjoyed this novel. The novel The Things They Carried, tells the story of the Vietnam War, and the time after, from the perspective of many different characters all involved in the war. This book has made me reflect on how privileged I am to live where and when I do. In addition, it made me consider how I would react in the appalling conditions the soldiers experience and how going through extreme experiences like that would change me.
    1. In the novel, the soldiers coped with being in combat in many ways; many things specific to the person and some things the soldiers did together. Each soldier had their own special ritual that they did every day. These rituals helped them have some sort of order in all the chaos of war. They also carried specific things from back home, such as Lt. Cross’ pebble and Kiowa’s grandfather’s hatchet. Most of them carried photographs of people they cared about who were back in America. Finally, they all dreamed of life at home; what they would do when they got back, who they would see. They often daydreamed about these things instead of focusing on the war and destruction around them.
    4. The fear of shame or letting someone down was so great it motivated the soldiers to do daring and sometimes rash actions during the war. For example, the pride of LBJ caused him to not leave the war. This is because they wanted their last moments to be great, not cowardly. People who injured themselves on purpose to go home were called cowards and quitters. The pride and fear got so extreme people who actually needed to go home would be reluctant to leave. Because of this, and also not wanting to disappoint their families, the soldiers stayed motivated and determined no matter how bad the war got.

  23. Janae G.

    1. Realistically thinking, wars are tough on anyone someway, somehow. In order for the soldiers to cope with being in combat, for starters they had to focus (and I would say) find a way to look at the brighter side of situations. I say this because, as read in the book, rather than them have great sorrow and mourn the deaths of those whom they beside, they look for a moral in the situation. Like a message in a way that resulted in jocularity and dark humor. By doing this so very often that they did once a death occurred, they became immune to deaths. Instead of one (some) mourning of great sorrow, they were satisfied with the fact that they are still a fighting man standing in battle, like Kiowa was when Ted Lavender died. In addition to the soldiers coping, they brought belongings with them from back home. It gave them comfort and gave motivation to fight harder, and stay to survive (something to look forward to once finally reaching home). Lt. Jimmy Cross is an example of this by keeping two pictures, letters he pretended to be love letters, from Martha; a girl he had fallen in love with. Mentally stuck thinking about a girl in a whole other, while physically trapped at war.
    4. Feeling shame and the idea of letting another person down was motivation to the soldiers thought the novel. During the tunnel mission, Lt. Cross had his head wrapped around some girl, curious about her ways, and daydreaming about how they would spend life together. Not focusing, he put not only his life in danger, but his men lives were in danger as well. In the end one soldier was killed, Ted Lavender. Lavender was hot in the head and instantly collapsed. From then on Lt. Cross buried himself in grief, guilt, and regret. He loved a woman before he loved his men, and because of that he took it upon himself to take the blame. In result he disciplined himself by burning notes from her, pictures, and her good luck rock she gave him, so he could stay more focused on the war, not risking anymore lives. He also began to run his ship tighter: insist on clean weapons, he would tell them to police up their acts, no longer abandon equipment along the route of the march, kept his troops moving at a proper pace, etc. The men feared being looked at as weak, so that tried avoiding that to avoid feeling ashamed. “Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment.”
    Assessment: So far while reading the novel “The Things They Carry” by Tim O’Brien, I find it a very intriguing book to read, a well organized piece put together considering that there are individual stories within the story itself. The way he writes about his experience really gives us readers an inside view on how wars went down. For example the way soldiers felt mentally and physically, how the real world back home has a huge affect on them while in action. I’m not big on wars and reading about history way back, but the book is definitely keeping me engaged.

  24. Lindsay H

    So far, I have been enjoying the book, although I started off a little skeptical of it. I think that it is a very different perspective of the Vietnam War and of war in general because it doesn’t discuss the facts as much, and instead focuses on the feelings and the soldiers that were involved. After the war, many of the soldiers deal with feelings of guilt, or depression, or post-traumatic stress. During the war, the men coped with being in combat through jokes and dark humor. To some, their comments may come across as insensitive, but that’s war. You have to have some way to cope with the pain that comes along with that. In the book, one topic discussed is the component of truth. The truth in war isn’t always clear, as is depicted throughout the book. It may not be clear for a number of reasons, such as some of the actions taken by the American forces in Vietnam. They made their way along in Vietnam, even in the South, burning villages and killing a large amount of civilians. In this situation the truth would be unclear because here they were, Americans, destroying their allies lives and land. Who was the enemy, the North Vietnamese fighting for their country’s independence and to finally be free of other countries? Or the allies to South Vietnam, fighting for the Vietnamese “freedom” from future communist rule, yet destroying the country and killing its citizens, our friends? Another aspect of the war that blurred the truth was that many of the Americans fighting in Vietnam did not know why they were fighting. They didn’t want to be in Vietnam and did not agree with the reasons given to them. Often the men were sent to war because of guilt over serving their country, even though they may not have agreed with it, or even protested. There was also a particular stress put on men because if they didn’t go to war in Vietnam, they would be considered weak, or pathetic, or some other words that would be used to describe them because they were afraid or just didn’t think the war was necessary. I believe that everyone would benefit in some way from reading this book and I would highly recommend it. It shows a unique perspective of the war and the soldiers’ lives and thoughts who were fighting for a cause they might not have even believed in.

  25. Rachel Berg

    The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien has been a very intriguing book so far. We have already read some of his stories and it is interesting how much detail he still remembers from his experiences. The stories we have read are about, trust, friendship, and loyalty. You have to be able to trust your leaders and peers in order to make it out. The one story that really stood out to me was the one about the two soldiers where one tried to kill the other but in the end both of them made a pact to never hurt each other or endanger themselves. During the Vietnam War the truth of what really happened during certain segments we might never know. The truth is not always clear because everyone has a different point of view and see’s the story from different angles. In every one of Tim O’Brien’s stories it is from his point of view and what he saw and thought, but if you asked someone else who was also there they could have a completely different opinion. This concept also connects with the big picture of the whole Vietnam War. Each side was saying to the other the reasons why they started the war, but really it was all their opinions and what they thought they could make a case out of. The idea of letting a person down motivates Tim in many ways throughout the story. In most every story we have read it talks about family and friends at home. This thought of going back to their families and not letting them down carried many soldiers through the tough times. The shame of letting another person down would be the worst feeling in the world because you did not only let your fellow soldiers down, but your country whom you are fighting for. For all these reasons, I am enjoying the novel The Things The carried and learning about Tim’s experiences.

  26. Ian Herdegen

    I have learned a lot from the book The Things They Carried. It really puts in perspective what war is like. It relates to what we are doing in American Lit. right now (realism). The story focuses more on the characters and their thoughts and how the war affects them than the war or plot itself. It also focuses on what life is like for the average person in the war. These people are not high rank or anything special and are basically just the unlucky ones that got drafted. With the anti-war movement going on at home, the soldiers lose interest in fighting and also long for the life they had back home. Even though the draft is abolished, the selective service act still frightens me. My brother is turning 18 soon and he already received the selective service act pamphlet in the mail, which really let me grasp the reality of the situation.

    1 – The soldiers were able to cope with the horror of the war in several ways. First of all, they told jokes. They joked about how people died and the situation they were in. Although dark, laughter helped ease their pain. Soldiers was also smoke which could help them relax. One even took weed from a dead soldiers bag. Soldiers also coped with being in combat by carrying items that had great meaning to them. While many brought tools, backpacks, and weapons, a great deal of soldiers carried things that help them hold on to their morale and remember that the world they lived in in the past is still there.

    3 – Many soldiers did not want to be in the war. It was a draft, they did not volunteer. American soldiers were lonely and isolated. Each man of war had his own family, friends and life that had been left behind at home that they were thinking about. Also, with death always at their doorsteps, I think each soldier worried about themselves and their own safety/survival, giving everyone a sense of isolationism. In a sense, they focused too much on the war and couldn’t really bond with each other.

  27. Stephanie Green

    Suddenly getting drafted and having to be ready to fight in combat was something that draftees didn’t want to do. Some fled to Canada, like O’Brien, others hoped that their social class, their current studies in college, or a doctors waiver would be able to get them out of the war. However, this didn’t for many, and because some soldiers were already struggling with the idea of having to go to war, they had to find ways to cope in a mindset where any day was their last. The soldiers coped by keeping anything that could hold their memories. Almost everyone had pictures, pictures of their family and closest friends that helped them cope with the situation. These pictures were sometimes ironically deadly to the soldiers, as shown with the death of Kiowa, when a young solider turned on a flashlight and revealed their location. But this unfortunate also shows another method of coping, the openness they had with each other, to talk about who and what they missed and to joke around in a time that really wasn’t a time to joke around. Even if they didn’t have the closest relationship, they always made sure to have each other’s backs in a time to vent about what was on their minds.
    America went into the Vietnam War with high expectations to win the war. Even with the confidence that America had at winning, the war was extremely dangerous; people lost their limbs, would after suffer traumatic mental health issues, and were subjected to an attack at any moment. To avoid letting down their family, they killed people, they did as their commanders asked, and they suffered through the pain they felt. Tim and his comrades didn’t want to have the shame that the country with all of the weapons, soldiers, and resources lost, and they definitely didn’t want to be known as weak. They didn’t want to let down their comrades, leaders, or the country as a whole. This shame led to Tim and his comrades motivated to obey leaders and do whatever they could to win.
    I think The Things They Carried was a great book. Books related to history are not ones that I normally did, but I think that O’Brien’s writing choice based on the excerpts I read showed an overarching theme we get from war. He often proposes questions about how something relates to the war, like in “Courage” or “How to Tell a War Story.” He makes it appeal like these answers are concrete, but throughout that chapter proposes multiple dichotomies and contradictions that give an unclear answer. These contradictions make me think of how different the war stories are for everyone, and shows the perspective that the war shouldn’t be taught in a textbook fashion or in classroom, because there are so many different interpretations of it. These connections of the book make me enjoy it even more, because I do not have any personal relationships with anyone that has fought in a war, except for a Great Uncle who I was never close to before he passed away, making O’Brien and his stories my first source for the pain that he went through and the roots of his PTSD that eventually led to his death. The emotions and both the abstract and specific parts make The Things They Carried a book I would like to finish cover to cover.

  28. Nathan

    I am definitely enjoying Tim O’Brien’s book, The Things they Carried. I think it gives a very gritty and compelling look at what life was like in the Vietnam War. I especially love the writers way of holding nothing back and giving all the gory details, I think that this is very interesting and in my opinion a great way to tell a story about a war as brutal as Vietnam. It really painted a picture for me about what it was like fighting in the war. This book is a very interesting read and extremely hard to put down.
    1. When fighting in the Vietnam War the men witnessed many horrors and endured many hardships including the deaths of many of their closest friends. This put a huge toll on the young minds of the soldiers fighting and in order to ease the pain they joked and mad fun of all the horrible things that happened to them. For example one time while they were marching, they were suddenly ambushed by the enemy and there was gunfire all around. The men fell to the ground and took cover, fearing for their lives. When they got back up, to ease the tension, one of the men stating that he almost shit his pants. Saying things like this helped them cope with the horrible situations and be strong and positive in the face of death.
    4. The fear of letting people another person down motivated Tim throughout the entire story. He felt that his honor was on the line with every action he took and though he did not want to lose his life, but he would risk it for fear of embarrassment. A great example is when he was drafted at first he was afraid and he tried to run away to Canada. He was taken in by a old man who lived on a river that was the border of Minnesota and Canada. One day he was given the chance to escape the draft when the old man took him fishing on the foreign shore of the river. He realized that though his freedom was but a few feet away he could not jump out and swim there because of the embarrassment he would face by every person he knew or would ever know.

  29. Ashley S.

    Reflection:
    So far, I really enjoy the novel. In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien, he gives you a highly detailed overview of how a soldiers life was in the Vietnam War. You are able to experience the emotional tensions that the soldiers went through every step of the way. From self-guilt and despair to witnessing their comrades being blown to pieces before their eyes. I like how Tim gives you a brief descriptions of every characters background and personality to a point that you really connect with the characters. I also think that it’s pretty neat how the information of the Vietnam War mentioned consists of material that we previously learned in class. This makes it easier for the reader to understand the context of the story.

    1.) The soldiers coped with being in combat by keeping themselves a shard of reality that kept themselves sane, a piece of them before they came to war. This piece of reality helped the soldiers hold on to dear memories or brought them to a sense of tranquility, like a comfort item. For instance, Lieutenant Cross carried photographs and letters of Martha and her lucky pebble. These items helped Cross remember how life outside of war was and how Martha was as a person. Rat Kiley carried comics, brandy, and candy (M&M’s). Kiowa carried his New Testament from his father and moccasins. Lastly, as already stated, Henry Dobbins carried his girls’ pantyhose around his neck to comfort him. Other ways the soldiers coped with being in combat, was by creating jokes with one another to relieve the tension, make up new vocabulary words, have a fearless demeanor, and a sense of humor; although the men tended to try and act tough towards the war, inside they were terrified and scared of being considered a coward.

    2.) The truth is not always clear, because it depends on the individual’s interpretation of the information. If the interpreters mind set is open to that truth possibly happening, they would more in likely believe it. However, if they are skeptical of the concept and can’t grasp the chance of it being true, then the truth would be unclear. The truth also isn’t clear, because people enjoy telling others amazing events that happened (either to themselves or someone else). Doing this helps start conversations and create relations with other people. When telling a true story one always wants it to have an interesting attention grabber to engage the listener or in my opinion, add some pizzazz. The story teller may exaggerate parts of the truth to add pizzazz thus, confusing the listener and giving them doubts about the truth or, shocking them from the unbelievable accounts. These two ways that the truth is unclear (interpretation and pizzazz to truth) are shown in the novel, because at times the war stories seem unreasonable or unbelievable. However, the reader (us/others) was not there and may have to experience in that situation so, they don’t actually know if it (could) happened or not. In chapter 6, “How to Tell a True war Story”, Mitchell Sanders told Tim O’Brien a war story of how a troop of soldiers on the Hanoi Mountain heard bizarre noises such as music, cocktail parties, the opera, lounge talk, the glee club and more. Also, that Vietnam itself was talking. Later on, Sanders told O’Brien that he made up some of the details like the opera and glee club etc, but O’Brien believed the story was true anyways. To justify my two ways of how the truth is unclear, I’d say that O’Brien believed Sanders, because they were both currently in the war and had already heard, seen, and done things that the average person couldn’t dream of doing. Due to this, O’Brien was already open to the idea. However, a person who’s never been in a war/Vietnam War maybe would question the Sander’s story. In terms of “pizzazz” some people would maybe consider Sanders detail of the story as dramatic and exaggerated.

  30. Francesca

    1. The soldiers had to cope some way while in the war. Their coping method was to bury it. I feel that in the war and once out of the war, they just buried their feelings. They had sever PTSD and no one could possible understand what they went through unless you were a solider. And fought the war with them. In the war there way of coping was to just try to live. They used their families and other things of theirs they loved as motivation to get back home. They told themselves that if they just survived they could make it home. But they didn’t now what they would have to deal with when they got home. They would be spit on and even though they thought that everything would be okay when they got home, they were still haunted about what they had to do and witness during the war. There were no jobs back home, They weren’t treated well. Despite probably knowing this deep now, they still had hope because without hope, how could they continue with life. Through hope and never giving up, they were able to cope with all the hardships the war brought on them.
    2. They truth isn’t always clear because a truth to some, may be a lie to another. In a novel, one man, one perspective, writes the story and if he didn’t experience the story first hand, he may just be telling his audience what he believes to have happened, not what actually happened. Another thing, some one could tell a story in truthfully, but he could only be telling half of it, not the entire story that makes a big difference. A story about war can easily get warped by what the government wants us to hear and by the soldiers with PTSD. For some of the soldiers, it may be hard to talk about the war and if they have PTSD it may affect what they remember and how things actually happened.

  31. Tassia Zaryckyj

    In “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, shame is portrayed as a motivational factor for the soldiers. Fear of shame not only motivates unwilling men to go to Vietnam but also affects soldiers’ relationships with each other once there. In one of O’Brien’s stories, “On the Rainy River”, Tim explains how when he had received the letter saying he’d been drafted for the Vietnam War he was faced with a very difficult decision of either escaping to Canada or going to fight in the war. What keeps O’Brien from fleeing into Canada is not his patriotism or dedication to his country but concern over what his family and community will think of him if he doesn’t fight. While in war, the want for social acceptance also leads the men to participate in ridiculous and dangerous activities. In the story, “The Dentist”, Curt Lemon decides to have a perfectly good tooth pulled to ease his shame about having fainted during an earlier experience with the dentist. Another man, Jimmy Cross, had only gone to war because all his friends had and then becomes an uncertain leader and endangers the lives of his men. In one of O’Brien’s stories, “How to Tell a True War Story”, he states, “In many cases a true war story cannot be believed. If you believe it, be skeptical. It’s a question of credibility. Often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn’t, because the normal stuff is necessary to make you believe the truly incredible craziness.” The result is that it is impossible to know whether or not any event in the stories truly happened to O’Brien. The story begins with “This is true” which does not necessarily mean the events told from the soldier were true but that the style of the content is true to the experience that the soldiers had. O’Brien introduces a few different storytellers, Rat Kiley and Mitchell Sanders to explain war’s ugly truths. Rat was well regarded although he was known to exaggerate. Rat tells his story of how his close friend, Curt Lemon, is killed and Rat writes Lemon’s sister a letter talking about her brother and crazy stunts he attempted. Rat believes the letter is very touching and personal; however, Lemon’s sister never writes back. O’Brien remembers memories of the event and comments that in true stories it is difficult to distinguish what actually happened from what seems to happen. O’Brien also said that people should be skeptical and writes about Mitchell Sander’s story. Sanders said that he and some other men were sent into the mountains to just lay low for a week and listen for any enemy movement. He states that the men begin hearing strange noises which becomes an opera, a glee club, chanting and more. But the voices they hear are not human but from the rocks and trees. The men then called in for bombs and firepower and explode a part of the mountain. However, the next day Sanders admits he made up parts of the story. He says that the moral was that nobody listens.

  32. Mia T

    In The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, Soldiers coped with being in combat in many different ways. One soldier, Lavender, carried marijuana. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried reminders of his love, Martha. He carried her lucky pebble in his mouth, and her letters she wrote to him. The narrator informs the reader of all the things they carried, emotionally and literally. Cross for example, carried the fact that Martha didn’t love him back throughout the war. He also mentioned all the things the soldiers had to carry for combat, such as pocket knives, machine guns, maps, compasses, morphine, malaria tablets, and compress bandages for the wounded. These items helped people cope, but also in ways brought them down. Cross’s letters made him sometimes zone out during the war, and Lavenders marijuana was just a way to escape from the reality of war. Actual things they had to carry, like war items, helped defend them, but also brought them down due to making it harder for them to move. These items did not really help, but were just a way to ease their tensions from battling in Vietnam. The novel is about truth, but how can you tell a true story when there are so many different viewpoints and variations? Wars, especially the Vietnam war, caused PTSD in many soldiers, and many had different ways they looked at the war. People who got PTSD after the war would probably have an extremely negative view on the war, or wouldn’t even be able to talk about it. Others who were drafted by force could have a negative view because they didn’t believe in the war. In lavenders case, if he would have lived to tell his story, he may not be able to correctly due to the fact he was on drugs part of the time. It is hard to tell a true war story because even soldiers in the same troop experience the war differently and have different emotions on the things that are happening during and after the war.

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