The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, is a story told through the eyes of an American soldier fighting in the Vietnam War where the title of the novel accurately portrays what the plot is all about. The piece focuses mostly on the things that this soldier and members of his squad carry as well as the obsessive love their captain beholds for a girl back home. Throughout this story that revolves around the hardships of being a part of the Vietnam War, there is one unwavering feature—the word “carry”. This simple yet significant word is repeated several dozen times during O’Brien’s piece as he describes the countless trinkets, weapons, and personal items that the men carry with them. “Carry” is not only used to describe physical things. O’Brien uses this repetition to demonstrate the physical weight, emotional weight, and the weight of responsibility that the soldiers have to constantly carry with them through the war. The importance behind the repetition of the word “carry” is that it aids in showing the cumulative weight on the men in this squadron and what they unfortunately had to go through. 

O’Brien goes into great detail about every ounce of gear, personal belongings, and superstitious keepsakes that the squad carries with them, for it all ultimately adds up to an unimaginable burden. He describes every piece all the way down to the “lucky pebble” Lieutenant Cross carried in his mouth, and always uses the word “carry” to describe the gradual building of weight on the backs of these men. However, it was not just equipment that these men had to physically carry through the jungle. Along with heavy gear and personal belongings, they also had to carry the elements of Vietnam, such as “the soil… the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay” (O’Brien 8). The country of Vietnam loaded more than just rain and heat onto their backs, for it also unraveled things of much more danger, like “malaria... dysentery” or “ringworm and lice” (O’Brien 8). The repetition of the word “carry” throughout the story forces the reader to remember the countless things these men had to painfully carry with them as they traveled through the jungle.  

The physical weight the soldiers had to carry on their backs does not come close to the emotional weight they had to carry with them as well. Arguably, the heaviest emotional tolls are the fear of death and restraining the urge to “run or freeze or hide” (O’Brien 11) as danger and enemies lurked around every corner. The soldiers were always worrying and staying on guard, never giving themselves a second to remember home or who they used to be. The squad “carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die” (O’Brien 11) in their minds and were always thinking of regrets, what-ifs, or things they wish they could have done before they died. It was not only just the thought of being killed that they had to carry, but also the guilt of men being forced to kill. Carrying the constant thoughts of dead fifteen-year-old enemies and fallen friends, the soldiers slowly became desensitized to the killing and the line between right and wrong became blurred as they did what they had to do to survive. 

No one had to carry a heavier emotional toll than Lieutenant Cross, who carried his burdened love for Martha heavily through the jungles of Vietnam. Carrying something was “to hump it” and “Lieutenant Jimmy Cross humped his love for Martha up the hills and through the swamps” (O’Brien 6) of Vietnam. He carried it for a long time until he realized that he could not carry his responsibility to his men and his love for Martha at the same time. He had to make a decision, and decided in the end that he needed to take on full responsibility for his squad and leave Martha behind. 

Lieutenant Cross is not the only one who carries responsibilities with him. Every member of the squad carries a responsibility to their country, whether it is a responsibility to carry out orders, a responsibility to kill, or both. They were ordered to kill, march through minefields, and crawl through rat infested tunnels and “they just shrugged and carried our orders” (O’Brien 5) knowing it was part of the weight that they had to endure. Through the mind of a soldier, it was almost impossible to carry the mindset of a true soldier as well as grasp a sense of who they were as an individual. Since this was the case, they were obligated to burry old morals, old loves, and old memories in order to make room for a machine gun and a bag of M&Ms. 

One of the most powerful representations of the great weight the men had to carry is shown in the death of Ted Lavender, who gets shot while in battle. Rat Kiley describes Ted Lavender’s dead body falling “like cement” (O’Brien 8) as all the weight of his gear, his fears, and his responsibilities fall with him. The weight of the war and all that it held became too much, resulting in Ted’s body and everything he physically and emotionally carried to collapse dead in the dirt. 

The Things They Carried is a very powerful story that portrays a lot of meaning in such a simple word. The word “carry” is used to represent countless elements that the American soldiers had to bear throughout the story and truly allows the reader to visualize the hell that these men had to go through. The things that the soldiers had to carry were unimaginable and O’Brien does a great job keeping track of the overall toll on the men by constantly repeating the word “carry”. O’Brien’s description of all the little things that the men had to carry ultimately add up to an incredibly amount. The weight of the things they carried was so heavy that many of the soldiers were forced to leave pieces of themselves behind, forget who they are, and focus on what they came to Vietnam to do—fight in the seemingly never ending war and “carry” on.
