When you think of war, you think of big soldiers carrying loads of equipment in order to stay alive. That may be true, but what most people overlook is the emotional toll it takes on the soldiers. The Things They Carried clearly shows us the physical affects on war, however when you look a little deeper, it shows us the emotional side as well. In doing so, O’Brien gets us to make a emotional connection with the characters in order to achieve his ultimate goal, to appreciate what soldiers do for us even more than we already do.  In order to do so, the author, Tim O’Brien, describes in detail what each character carries and the meaning of them.

Everybody knows that in war, soldiers carry with them tons and tons of heavy equipment in order to keep them alive. Some of the stuff may be necessities like canteens of water, extra ammunition, and food while other stuff may be for emergencies, like rope and a fire extinguisher. However, all those items add on weight, and with that comes physical stress. There’s a reason O’Brien writes how much each item weighs after he lists it. That reason is to get you to understand how hard these soldiers work. For example, the author says Henry Dobbins, “carried the M-60, which weighed 23 pounds unloaded, but which was almost always loaded. In addition, Dobbins carried between 10 and 15 pounds of ammunition draped in belts across his chest and shoulders” When O.Brien says that, it makes you almost feel how heavy that weapon is, but also lets you know that it’s a necessity, and without it, Henry would probably never come home. By listing how much each item weighs, O’Brien is subliminally beginning a connection between his readers and his characters. O’Brien knows that when you read how heavy each item weighs, it puts a realistic idea in your head of how hard they are working and thus brings out appreciation for the soldiers in the story.

In the beginning of the story, O’Brien tells us about his buddy First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. Cross carried letters from a woman named Martha, who was a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. O’Brien  tells us that at the end of every day, as the sun goes down, Cross would re read the letters over and over and imagine him and Martha being together. The letters were “mostly chatty (and) elusive on the matter of love”. However, Jimmy hoped they were. This shows us that soldiers carry with them this strong sense of hope. This is because Jimmy goes to bed every night knowing there is a very high chance that Martha doesn’t love him back, however, the fact of not knowing for sure if she does or not allows Jimmy to still believe there is a chance. Although Cross carried the letters with him, he carried something much heavier wherever he went. Cross carried the burden of the platoon. After all, he does share the initials as someone who carries the burden of the world, Jesus Christ. Both Jesus and Cross carry with them this sense of leadership and honor. Cross leads his platoon and is honored to do so, but at the same time carries the burden of the platoon and holds it to himself if someone dies. Jesus is the same, he is viewed as the leader of Christianity and is held accountable, by Christians, for peoples death. By connecting Jimmy Cross to Jesus Christ, O’Brien has just taken the next step in connecting his readers to the characters. O’Brien knows that the majority of his readers at the time would be catholic or some branch of Catholicism so he gave the readers a character that, in a way, portrayed the works of a person everybody already connected to, Jesus. When a unkown character is linked to someone that people have worshiped their entire lives it allows the readers to have an even deeper connection to the character.  Next, O’Brien ends his description about Jimmy by adding that after he puts the letters away, he goes back to his hole and wonder if Martha lied when she told him he was a virgin. This proves that not only does war bring up the emotions of hate and nationalism to a soldier, but this sense of questioning is brought up as well. This is because in war, you are supposed to make life or death decisions. With the knowledge of knowing that the fate of your comrades is in your hands, You are going to start to question every option you have. That sense of questioning is depicted in Jimmy when he starts questioning whether Martha told the truth or not. Although everybody carried different things, there was one item that everybody carried, and that was photographs. This is because photographs bring up a very multifaceted group of emotions. For instance, a soldier could bring a picture of his wife and kids smiling. That one picture can bring up at least two different emotions. The first emotion it can bring up is happiness. This is because that soldier probably loves his family and when you see someone you love smiling it makes you happy as well. That photo can also bring up the emotion of longing. That soldier probably misses his family, granted he took a photo of them with him, and he is definitely wishing he was with them. These emotions brought up is O’briens way of building an even stronger connection between the readers and his characters because now that the connection is strong, the readers will feel the same emotions that the characters have.

Towards the end of the book, the author intertwines the physical and emotional tolls in order to further our connection to the characters. For instance, after their comrade Ted Lavender dies, the author goes into detail about how soldiers think. He states that soldiers carry with them an emotional baggage of people dying and the fear of blushing. What this means is that the soldiers were more scared to not kill and not die, rather than to kill or die. This is because their emotions are so deep and they have invested blood sweat and tears into this war that it is their job to kill and die and they will do anything it takes to complete their job. Furthermore, the author tells us that the real soldiers would talk smack about the ones that took  the easy way out by shooting off a toe or a finger in order to get medical leave. This proves that soldiers should be even more appreciated than they should because not everybody thinks like that. People were shooting themselves in the foot in order to leave, that’s how bad it was. However, there were men who would look at those men who shot themselves with disgust and call them cowards. When O’brien says this, he uses your connection to the characters and turns it into a deep appreciation towards soldiers. He took a character that he made you have a connection with and through the actions and statements of the character, made you appreciate greatness. Any man that can go through that much physical and emotional pain and can still have the drive to get their job done is the definition of greatness.

In conclusion, Soldiers go through as much physical pain as you can think of. However, they carry just as much weight emotionally as they do physically. They carry more emotions than you ever thought they could. Tim O’Brien takes those physical and emotional times and creates a connection between the reader and his characters. After that conection is established, he uses it to make the readers appreciate the soldiers in, and outside of his story even more than the readers previously did. The soldiers experiences shape and mold the men of who they are, like when Cross became more realistic and told himself no more fantasies so he let go of his hope of Martha. Things can change, but the one thing that is a common factor is that it’s not physically nor emotionally easy to go to war. 