Summary: The Things They Carried

Imagine you had to fight a war you didn’t understand and didn’t support. You would have to put your job, education, relationships, and dreams on pause to risk your life for a war. In the scenario that you would try to avoid draft, you would face humiliation and isolation from those around you, including loved ones. You would be seen as a coward and a traitor. This is what many young men faced when the Vietnam war started, many civilians didn’t know the reason for the war and many opposed the war. However, the people with power made the decision to fight the war, their reason being to fight communism. Tim O’Brien argues those who are for the war should fight in the war. Those who want war should fight in it, however, if there aren’t enough soldiers to fight, every civilian of age should fight for

This is repeated throughout the book, but we are introduced to this rule in the first chapter of “ The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien on page 13. After finding the burnt remains of a young enemy soldier, Mitchell Sanders , a soldier who is part of Tim’s unit, gifts Henry Dobbins the thumb of the burnt body. Mitchell states that there is a definite moral, then proceeds to kick the dead boy’s head away. After the process, Henry says “ I don’t see no moral.” This shows what war can do to soldiers, it can desynthesize violence. Secondly, on the seventh chapter named “ How to Tell a True War Story,” O’Brien explains how many fake stories end up in triumph and have some kind of moral. On page 68, he states, “If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie.” This shows how the after effects of war aren’t as joyful, this also mentions how there isn’t any rectitude that is kept after the war. This is because in war you are supposed to kill your enemy. It doesn’t