Tim O’Brien is an American novelist and Vietnam War veteran. In his narrative “The Things They Carried”, he tells us about commander Jimmy Cross, who is leading a group of soldiers through the Vietnam War. Although, the narrative is related to the Vietnam War, the author makes the story not about the hostilities, but about the already hard life of the soldiers involved in the war, where as like in the usual life they have death, love, laughing, jokes, friendship, emotions and this life has its own rhythm. According to the name of the story, the author repeats the structure of the sentence “They carried…” in order to familiarize us with the all things which make up this specific life of the soldiers and what these things mean for them at a time of war.

Mostly in every chapter the author lists things carried by the soldiers, these things are not only essential equipment of soldiers like guns, bulletproof vests, ammunitions and food, which are of heavy weight; these young men also carried emotions and responsibility for each other, their pride before each other. Throughout the entire story, the soldiers go and march, what might represent the sense of life: moving forward, carrying out all happiness and misery. Frequently, the author mentions the weight of the everything the soldiers carry in order to show us how these soldiers were burdened by the heavy weight of the world and war things. Things which sometimes they don’t even need in the war. The author also tells us about the death of one of the soldiers, Ted Lavender, who was of little courage and carried a lot of tranquilizers and was armed much more than the others, he wore a helmet for self peace, however was killed by shoot to his head. The author compares how things like grenades, guns and so forth, which Lavender carried to protect himself, to the light loving letters written by Martha to the commander Jimmy Cross, which gave him not a protection, but the enormous motivation to survive in this war, to come back to Martha and do everything he had not done when he had the chance. This love feeling, which Cross carries through the war, helps him to survive, however, it also distracts him from the platoon and war, because of this distraction, Cross blames himself for the death of his soldier. 

Very often the author mentions Martha in Cross’s thoughts, telling that he and Martha live in completely different worlds. The life of the guys on the war is very different from the life of usual people in the world, where there is no need to carry anything, where all have everything they need. However, these guys try to fit everything they could have in their normal life and the things they have to carry in order to survive. Jimmy Cross is a young commander, he is 24 years old, that gives us a hint that all of his soldiers are not much older than their leader. They live in a world where one could die so fast like Ted Lavender, “once-boom”, which the author tells us many times in speech of one of the soldiers. The story as a whole is made of the very short sentences, in my opinion, the author uses this style in order to show us the fast rhythm of a soldiers’ life, where anyone of them could die and stop carrying all the things. They didn’t choose that life, as written in one of the paragraph, they were sent here, they didn’t have choice rather than go through Vietnam burning and destroying all villages and people on their way. In spite of being a machine for killing, they were also carrying human qualities like pride, valor, honor dignity before the comrades. They can’t give up and they can’t fail, they are scared of the death, however more than that they are scared of being disclosed in their fear before each other and lose the honor and respect. The life of the soldiers might be different, sometimes it seems like normal life, where they joke and laugh at each other, but other times there are moments when life is like a hell and they want to scream and run out of fear. They also have peculiar rude way of speaking, showing that their world is not the same.

The main figure of this story is Jimmy Cross, in whose thoughts the author compares the life which he could spend with Martha and the real life on the edge of death. In his mind, Jimmy Cross recollects lost opportunities with Martha, which he regrets about. By looking at the photos, which Martha sent him, he imagines there is another guy next to her, who could be Jimmy, but then he realizes that she doesn’t love him and all of that is his imagination. He realizes that he will never be the guy next to her, however Cross wants to love someone and be loved by someone, like other guys his age, this is why he keeps these letters and photographs from Martha, to have love at least in his imagination, something that is so helpful to him and support through these hard days of this war. However, after the Lavenders death he becomes conscious that he, as a commander of this group, carries the responsibility of this peoples’ lives and that his imagination, which is full of Martha, has endangered it. He has to choose between fictional love and the life of his soldiers. As a result, he burns everything about Martha, and tightens the rules and discipline among the soldiers in order to not incur more losses.

In this story about the Vietnam War, the author reflects on the deep meaning of war in details. The war sometimes could be real life for someone, who are the same as other guys, live their own specific life, which is dangerous, however, for them it is still life, where they can love, they have friends, emotions, pride and honor. Even if any day could be the last for the soldiers the still carry all this burdening guns and protections, because besides of that they still carry emotions and hope to come back home “…sailing that big silver freedom bird over the mountains and oceans, over America, over the farms and great sleeping cemeteries and highways…”(339). In this life they can only dream about to take off all these heavy things they carry and say “I’m sorry, motherfuckers, but I’m out of it, I’m goofed, I’m on space cruise, I’m gone!” (339). 
