The Things They Carried Reader Response Journal

The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien is a great book to show the impact of the Vietnam War on a variety of soldiers. The book is written in Tim's perspective when he was a soldier in the Alpha company, yet this book is still a work of fiction. I think this is a brilliant idea because he can use his own memories for parts, and then add to or fill-in spots so that the reader doesn't get bored and disconnected during the less eventful times.
The first chapter of the book, having the same name as the book, describes many of the things that the soldiers carried during their time of service in Vietnam. O'Brien describes all of the physical things they carried, including "letters" (1), "P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wristwatches, dog tags, mosquito repellent, chewing gum, candy, cigarettes, salt tablets, packets of Kool-Aid, lighters, matches, sewing kits, Military Payment Certificates, C rations, and two or three canteens of water. Together, these items weighed between 15 and 20 pounds" (2). He emphasizes the weight of many things in this first chapter to explain that all the things they carried weighted the soldiers down a considerable amount. I really like how he does that because it shows that they had a lot of stuff weighing them down. Tim also really shows how besides the physical weight they had to carry, they had a lot of emotional pain that they carried with themselves too. "He[Lt. Jimmy Cross] tried not to cry...He felt shame. he hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war" (16). He explains this in more general terms later in the chapter, "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...they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained" (21). Intangible basically means something that isn't physically there, and he says that even those things weighed down the soldiers.
I noticed in this chapter, Tim O'Brien doesn't use quotation marks for dialogue, yet he separates the paragraphs appropriately for dialogue. I think he did this intentionally because we don't know the people talking yet. So it doesn't seem awkward having unknown people talking.
The Company leader, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross decides he needs to put his leadership first, and do the best he can for his men. I think he showed Cross' understanding of this in a very powerful way, so that in the next chapter, which jumps twenty years to the "present" time, he still has "never forgiven himself for Lavender's death" (27). In this present voice, Tim O'Brien says that, "I'm forty-three years old, and a writer now, and the war has been over for a long while" (32). He re-states that line around a dozen times throughout the book, and I think he does as such to solidify the fact that these events happened a long time ago, and that his book is fiction, it's not all the hard facts from his memory, but some of it is heated up truth, as Tim O'Brien calls it. He still remembers a lot of these things, but most of the intense detail is created purely by his writing talent. I like how he mentions that frequently, sort of to bring the reader back to Earth and think about what he had written beforehand. While explaining his writing process, he says "As a writer, all you can do is pick a street and go for the ride, putting things down as they come at you. That's the real obsession. All those stories. Not bloody stories, necessarily. Happy stories too, and even a few peace stories. As he recalls many of his little fragments of memories and stories, he shows how young he and all the others in his company were; "The average age in our platoon, I'd guess, was nineteen or twenty" (37).
The chapter "On the Rainy River" (39), is probably the most important chapter in the entire book, it really helps readers understand Tim's point-of-view. He says he has never told this story before, but he wants people to know it. He starts the story, "In June of 1968, I was drafted to fight a war I hated" (40). The chapter goes on to show his feelings and reactions about being drafted into the war. I really like this chapter. It shows Tim O'Brien is human, and that he has his flaws just like everyone. A few months after getting his draft card and notice, in mid-July Tim thought "I began thinking seriously about Canada. The border lay a few hundred lies north, an eight-hour drive. Both my conscience and my instincts were telling me to make a break for it, just take off and run like hell and never stop" (44). This means a lot to me. I'm eighteen years old, and I have registered for the draft. I've thought many times what I would do if the war in Iraq caused the need to re-enlist the draft. Would I run to Canada? Would I stay and fight? I personally think that I would want to run to Canada out of fear of death, but I would stay, for my country. In the end, Tim decides to stay as well, but his reasoning is the opposite as mine. In his moment to decide, swim to Canada or fight, he reflects, "Right then, with the shore so close, I understood that I would not do what I should do. I would not swim away from my hometown and my country and my life. I would not be brave" (57). I thought cowardice would be to run to Canada, he thinks he wasn't brave enough to do that. But he felt that he was too much of a coward, so, "right then I submitted. I would go to the war-I would kill and maybe die-because I was embarrassed not to" (59). This important chapter ends with the cloudy day that he leaves all that is familiar, and steps out into Vietnam as a soldier. His last words, that show his feelings even after the war, "I survived, but it's not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to the war" (61).
In the next few short chapters, O'Brien starts to describe the lives and deaths of his company. The men include; Kiowa, Mitchell Sanders, Dave Jensen, Lt. Jimmy Cross, Lee Strunk, Rat Kiley, Curt Lemon, Henry Dobbins, Azar, and Eddie Diamond. Rat Kiley is a very good buddy of Tim, and he writes about how they've learned to tell war stories. One way he explains it by starting with the question:
"How do you generalize? War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also
mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discover and holiness and pity and
despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery.
War makes you a man; war makes you dead"(80).
I like this paragraph because it helps the reader understand the many emotions a man can feel all at once while in war, and why that makes it hard to recreate a war story using all of those emotions simultaneously. Another point he makes is, "To generalize about war is like generalizing about peace. Almost everything is true" (81). This matter of truth is very important, because most of what is in this book isn't "true". Yes, it's about the Vietnam war, but most of it has been written not because it actually happened, but because explaining it in this way helps readers to understand what it was like, not necessarily what it actually was. Once again I like how he explains this, so that it makes you want to go back and read about what you felt must have been true, but Tim O'Brien actually made it up in his head hoping you'd believe it. "Vietnam was full of strange stories, some improbable, some well beyond that, but the stories that will last forever are those that swirl back and forth across the border between trivia and bedlam, the mad and the mundane" (89).
One such story Tim tells in the next chapter. He tells the story of a boy who figured out a way to bring his girlfriend to Vietnam, and how she turns into one of the "Greenies" that the boy camped with, and can't relate to him anymore. She talks to him at the end, "I feel so close to myself. When I'm out there at night, I feel close to my own body, I can feel my blood moving, my skin and my fingernails, everything, it's like...I known exactly who I am. You can't feel like that anywhere else" (111).
I really love how Tim talks about how the most understandable stories are the least believable, and then to show it he tells this story. Having the story be about a girl, and how she changes shows how everyone changes by being in the war. Yet it seems different, because she's a girl, and at the time there weren't any girls in the military. It's very ironic, but also makes sense, that she goes through the exact same processes of getting into the war that many men do. Is the author trying to express that he feels women are equals and should be allowed to fight wars too?
Another thing it brings up is that the distance isn't the only thing that ruins relationships during wartime. They were together, they were in love. Yet the war changed them and after they had accepted their new selves, they, or at least Mary Anne, realized they weren't capable of loving each other any more. So they end up going their own ways, Mary Anne with the greenies, and eventually the wild of Vietnam itself.
After this story is over, Tim tells the story about the man he killed. He explains all the vivid details of it, all the little descriptions. he describes his victim, "The slim young man lay with his legs in the shade. His jaw was in his throat. His one eye was shut and the other was a star-shaped hole" (126). What I think is weird is that he describes how he killed this man, how he threw the grenade at his feet, and killed the man when it blew up under him. Yet when his daughter asks if he's ever killed a man, he answers truthfully, "Of course not" (131).
WHAT?
This was really confusing to me. But basically what I gathered by the end of this confusing part of the book was that he actually did not kill this young man, but he witnessed the killing, and feels responsible to a point. I find it weird that he was in Vietnam for so long, yet he never killed anyone. I wonder if that has anything to do with his view on the war? Maybe he just never had the opportunity, or maybe he didn't contribute to help his team when they were under fire? I'm not sure, but I plan to bring that up in discussion. When it's brought up again, he explains more of this, and closes with his daughter, "'Daddy, tell the truth,' Kathleen can say, 'did you ever kill anybody?' And I can say, honestly, 'Of course not.' Or I can say, honestly, 'Yes.'"
The next story Tim writes about makes a lot more sense than the last, but it is very sad. I'm sure many veterans, regardless of which war they fought in, could relate to this. He tells the story of one of his comrades, who struggles with feeling responsible for his friends' death, yet he cannot tell anyone. He feels that no one wants to hear, and even if they did, something inside him wouldn't let him tell the story. After driving around his hometown all day, he gives up his hopes of finding the words to say; "There was nothing to say. He could not talk about it and never would" (153). I think this really shows the emotional baggage that many soldiers have to "carry" for their entire lives after the war, and for many of them, it tears their lives apart. They are unable to work, or socialize normally, or go to school. All of these things become hard to do, and some decide their lives aren't worth living anymore, and kill themselves. That's what Norman Bowker did, because his story couldn't be told. "He wished he could have explained some of this. How he had been braver than he ever thought possible, but how he had not been so brave as he wanted to be" (153). Tim finally found a way to tell his story, but unfortunately it was not until after he had hung himself on the basketball hoop at his local YMCA. That's really sad that they cannot cope with these things, that because of the war they can't really return to a normal life.
Tim O'Brien reflects on this, and in his mind he thinks that's why he writes these stories. Remembering, and expressing all of his war experiences helps him get them off his soul, so that he can live with himself and continue on with a normal life with his daughter. However, Tim altered Norman's story so that he could spill out some of his own grief, "Norman did not experience a failure that night. He did not freeze up or lose the Silver Star for valor. That part of the story is my own" (161). His friend Kiowa died in the muck of that horrible night, and there was nothing he could do to save him. The next day they all had to search through the shit, the mud that was knee-deep and try to find their friends' body, so it could be sent home. That would be so hard to do, search through all that mess to find pain, and then have him sent home, for his family to grieve. There's just so much pain involved in war, how can it be worth it for anyone? Many soldiers blamed themselves for their friends' deaths, for their own inaction, and a number of other reasons. But I don't think it's their faults, I mean, they are all stuck in the chaos, and every one's doing the best they can to survive.
When the book goes back to the "present time" Tim talks about his trip back to Vietnam with his daughter. He visits many places he had been while in war, and many museums too. But the most important was that spot in the middle of nowhere, were they camped in the shit and he lost a close friend. He had written the part of the book when he describes that only a few months before, so these memories were fresh in his mind. This place is very important to him. "This little field...had swallowed so much. My best friend. My pride. My belief in myself as a man of some small dignity and courage"(184). This place is very important to him. His daughter says something while there that if I were him, it would crush my heart, "Some dumb thing happens a long time ago and you can't ever forget it" (183). It's sad that the past means so little to so many people. I don't know who said it, but hearing things like that always makes me think of the quote about how if we don't read and understand our history, it is bound to repeat itself.
Tim O'Brien was shot twice in Vietnam. Once was not life threatening, he was treated right away by Rat Kiley, his medic, and after resting for a week or so he was back on the field. But the second time, it was a different medic, Bobby Jorgenson, who was very inexperienced. That caused him to be sent away from the front lines, basically for good, and his experience in Vietnam is almost over. He sits in the medical camp, his hatred building for Jorgenson the entire time, and when he finally sees him again, Jorgenson tries to apologize. But now Jorgenson has been accepted into the "brotherhood" of his company, while he has been distanced because of his injury. That would be very depressing to be shot, and because of that lose your friends. All O'Brien can think about is getting him back for what Jorgenson did to him, and he finally does. He scares him badly with the help of Azar, but he regrets the intense hatred he feels, "There was a coldness inside me. I wasn't myself. I felt hollow and dangerous" (207). And in the end Jorgenson realizes it was him. They make up then, and although they aren't friends, they've somewhat put the past in the past.
Now he's reflecting on his past through many time periods. He talks about how death was hard for him to cope with during the war. His experiences with bodies, be they friends, enemies, or random were all personal and scary to him. This was because in his childhood his first girlfriend died of a brain tumor when she was nine years old. This has made it hard for him to cope with death his entire life. Is this why he didn't kill anyone in the war? I understand this traumatic experience in his childhood is what made him hate war. There's too much death in war. And that would also explain all the grief he feels whenever he has to experience death. Throughout the war, and even now, Tim tries to use skip around words like "dead" and "death" and say things like "kicked the bucket" (237), to make death seem less intense. Even now, he still thinks about Linda, his first love, "I'm forty-three years old, and a writer now, still dreaming Linda alive in exactly the same way. She's not the embodied Linda; she's mostly made up, with a new identity and a new name, like the man who never was. Her real name doesn't matter. She was nine years old. I loved her and then she died" (245). This is another one of his writing "therapy" sessions, to keep the past in writing instead of haunting him. He ends the book with the powerful, "I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story"(246).
I love this book because of all the emotions it expresses. Tim O'Brien says it exactly:
"How do you generalize? War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discover and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead"(80).
And he expresses that perfectly in this book. While reading it I felt like I was there, I was happy, sad, nervous, anxious for what was going to happen next. I think that Tim O'Brien did an excellent job at showing war how it really is.