'The Things They Carried' Journal

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Journal of “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
The cast in this story comprises of soldiers of a company named Alpha led by Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. They are deployed to fight in the Vietnam war. O’Brien is the narrator and also one of the soldiers and distinguishes the soldiers from one another by the items they carry. He lists things that the soldiers carry, both emotional and physical. They all carry the basic personal items and military goods as O’Brien points out, “The things they carry were largely determined by necessity”, adding “among the necessities or near-necessities were P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wrist watches, dog tags, mosquito repellant” (348).
Jimmy Cross carries letters from an English literature student, Martha, and is in love with her but is obsessed/fixated with whether or not she is a virgin. The author asserts “at full darkness, Cross would return to his foxhole and watch the night as he wonders if Martha was a virgin” (348). The first casualty was Ted Lavender who was shot outside Than Khe, “he went down under an exceptional burden, more than twenty pounds of ammunition” (351). He was very much afraid of the enemy than most soldiers, and thus, he carried more ammunition than was required. Kiowa, one of the soldiers in the platoon becomes obsessed by Lavender’s death. He describes the sound of the death as “Boom down” (351) to anyone who listens. The men walk around in a state of constant tension and constant boredom. The awareness that they might die anytime drives them crazy. They try to cover this fear with tough talk about the cowards who shoot off their own toes and fingers in order to be discharged from the army. The narrator asserts that all of them secretly long ...