Analysis of "The Things They Carried"

In The Things They Carried, there are many emotional burdens that each solider has to withstand. These burdens are, for the most part, physically present in everyday life as a soldier, while others, like the love of someone back home, may not be as physically noticeable. The book follows the life of Lt. Jimmy Cross, the leader of a regiment fighting during the Vietnam War.

The Vietnam War was perceived as a terrible time of slaughter, guerilla warfare, and protests of peace on the home front. Throughout The Vietnam War, the United States helped fight alongside the Southern Vietnamese army, whose ultimate goal was to over throw the Communist Northern Vietnamese government and hopefully reunite the land under a better ruling. During the time of war, soldiers are required to carry many things such as the obvious weight of their weaponry, ammunition, and field equipment. Some carry “near-necessities” such as cigarettes, dope, gum, and mosquito repellent. Many of these items make up an obscure amount of weight they have to drag around on a daily basis. For every soldier, however, there is something more they will carry with them, something of much more value that might not have been standard operating procedure. There are examples of comic books carried, photographs of loved ones, and even a more personal and deeper “distrust of the white man” (97).

Jimmy Cross has many burdens to bear out on the line of duty because of his leadership position as platoon leader and first lieutenant. As per his rank, Cross is required to carry such things as maps, code books, a compass, his pistol and the responsibility of the lives of his men. Jimmy carries around memoirs of his love back home, Martha. He carries two pictures of her, a letter that she ...

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...al but couldn’t, when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said Dear Jesus and flopped around on the earth and fired their weapons blindly ”(104). Along with daily life, the soldiers carried their reputations and “the fear of blushing” (105). At any moment they could have abandoned the war and gone home to life, love, and a warm bed, but they never did. This was not out of courage, but rather the soldiers were just too afraid to be cowards.

War is not just about the physical things that soldiers carry on a daily basis. The things they carried are so much more, even though the physical does take up a majority of the weight of a soldier. So many emotional burdens and tolls are to be accounted for when thinking about the units of the military fighting in the war and how they have to deal with them while in the midst of gunfire and hell.