Things They Carried Essay

Josh Chavez-Carroll
Eng. 11, 1st period

Tim O’Brien: The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried showed a lot of things about life before and after of a soldier in war.
Tim O’Brien showed different stories during the Vietnam War. He demonstrated all the people
he had in his platoon, the special things they carried, and stories about them or they shared.
Their stories were sometimes funny, but a lot were sad.

One story that affected me probably the most, was when Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk were becoming buds ever since that jackknife that Dave have, but was “gone”. Dave and Lee always
teamed up in ambushes. They made a pact between each other, if someone gets messed up-
wheel chaired- than the other would kill him. They were pretty serious, but sadly someone got
badly wounded. Lee Strunk stepped on a Mortar Round and blew off his right leg up to the knee. Dave tried to relieve the pain by adding morphine and hoped he came back. Lee woke up and
told Dave not to kill him, not to kill him for real. Jensen never did and Lee left on the helicopter.
Jensen found out he died later that day, but was relieve he didn’t have to kill him himself.

Another time, and this is very sad, was when Curt Lemon and Mitchell Saunders were messing
around and laughing. Until, Curt Lemon stepped on a booby-trapped 105 round and died.
Mitchell Saunders was very depressed and wanted to take his anger out on someone or
something. Well, the platoon found a stranded baby buffalo. Saunders tried feeding it at first, but then started shooting part of the buffalo, not to kill it but to hurt it. Not be off topic, but this is
the sickest part of the story. I can’t believe he would do that. At least Curt Lemon died quickly.
Just hope Mitchell could feel the same way as that buffalo.

Another part is when Tim O’Brien received a shocking and unfortunate kill. He couldn’t believe
that he jacked up a guy who was very similar to himself. Basically, how would you feel about
killing your doppelganger? It will just make you go into shock like how Tim O’Brien was- just
standing there looking at the body.

I always felt how much I will be doing my country a favor if I attended the Marines. But now, I
see colors that I didn’t expect. The book demonstrated how bad and crucial war really is to those men out there and those coming back home. You have a chance to die in a country that you are
fighting against. What if you were M.I.A., your family will ponder the rest of their life “what if
he’s still alive?” It will be hard on not only me, but my family as well. War is not the place to go
to have fun and make friends… because in the long run, you lose them and fun is actually hell.