Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried Essay

The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien gained and lost many things in Vietnam. One of the things he lost was the chance to graduate from Harvard. This could have made for a potentially very successful promising career but at the young age of twenty-one he was drafted to be sent out to the Vietnam War. Tim O’Brien did not like the idea of going to war, however he refused the idea of fleeing to Canada and decided to stay and serve his duty of fighting for his country. When he arrived in Vietnam he got the short end of the stick and ended up fighting on the front lines of the war. During his time there he observed that a majority of the men would do things like carry items or little possessions that made it easier to get by or reminded them of

This pebbled turned into a major important item to the story and to lieutenant Cross himself. One of the other things Martha gave him which is important to the story is a volleyball picture of her. He would often be angered over that fact he didn’t know who was looking at her while she was posing like that or who took the picture in general. She was always on his mind and he would often wonder if she was really a virgin or not. The pebble symbolized that him and Martha were still together regardless of the fact they were nearly completely across the world from each other. It would give him hope and something to fight for because as long as he got through the war he would have something to come back too after it. Cross would yell at his men to do things when in reality it was himself he was mad at because he could not step up to the expectations which were held for him. He felt he was responsible for Ted Lavenders death because he was always too busy having fantasies about Martha. He smoked all of Ted’s marijuana and sat next to a foxhole he dug up because and cried because he thought he was the reason Ted Lavender died. Also LT. Cross told his men that he was the reason he was