Summary: The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

Changed by War The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien encaptures many different sides of people who fought in the Vietnam War. Many of the men go into the war not knowing what will come of it, or know what will happen to them while they are serving. They all carry different items and memorabilia, as well as emotions and repressed feelings that show you who these people were before the war started. During the war, many of them are killed or captured by the Vietnamese, never to be seen again. The ones who live to tell the tale of the other people who were left behind are far different and changed from when they were first sent into the jungles of Vietnam. The men who fought in O’Brien’s platoon did not come out the same person they went into

Many of them were brutal and serious, while some were kind and nonthreatening. One of his troop members was a medic named Rat Kiley who was known as someone who greatly performs his duties as well as him wearing his heart on his sleeve. Eventually, one of his comrades in the war dies, which changes how he carries himself and takes him to the extremes when he has a nervous breakdown. The atmosphere and environment of the war made many of O’Brien’s fellow soldiers act the opposite of their normal personality. After Rat tortured a baby water buffalo out of grief for the loss of Curt Lemon, a fellow soldier named Mitchell Sanders made his remark about the situation by saying,. “‘Well, that's Nam,’ he said. ‘Garden of Evil. Over here, man, every sin's real fresh and original.’”(76) The phrase, “Well that’s Nam”, puts the blame of Rat’s actions on Vietnam and presumably the war as well. This communicates to the other soldiers that because they can hold the place they are currently staying in responsible for their unusual and polar opposite characteristics . “Garden of Evil” is the choice phrase Sanders uses to emphasize Vietnam’s conditions for the U.S. troops. This also shows irony by making something as serene as the Garden of Eden sound hellish. When he describes every sin as “fresh” and “original”, it conveys that every act considered bad that happened overseas was something the normal character of a soldier would never do if

When he is eventually taken off of his old troop’s service and taken to an encampment for soldiers, he loses contact with everyone in it. Because O’Brien was moved to a different platoon, he lost his connection and his place in his troop. Many soldiers changed opinions on another soldier if their role was downsized from their original mission. O’Brien eventually sees his old platoon again, this time with a couple new members and mostly familiar faces. He lounges around with them when one of the soldiers named Azar tells him that , “. . . now you're a has-been. One of those American Legion types, guys who like to dress up in a nifty uniform and go out and play at it.” (202) When Azar refers to O’Brien as a “has-been”, he implies that O’Brien is no longer involved in the useful parts of the war, and is now instead used for propaganda for joining the army. Using the term “play at it” to describe battling in the war makes O’Brien’s role as a soldier seem unimportant and a waste of time because fighting in combat is dumbed down to using words as innocent as play. This shows that Azar, who used to show respect for O’Brien and be a committed member to his platoon and him, that he now thinks very low of him since he is no longer out in the areas where actual fighting is taking place. Because Azar went from respecting O’Brien for fighting in the