Narrowly escaping death is no small feat. To be that close to ceasing to exist, being nothing but a body lying on the ground is something worth remembering for the sole purpose of avoiding and surviving the encounter a second time. Although there have been many terms to describe the same condition like shell shock and soldier’s heart, PTSD is theorized to occur for the same reason. Soldiers dance with death on a regular basis, and learning that dance, learning how she moves allows them to escape her embrace. This form of emotional baggage may not physically weigh anything, but it can be carried well into the future. The Things They Carried uses the material items like guns, ammunition, and radios to show the real weight carried by men in battle isn’t the weight on their back, but the thoughts and experiences that occur during a time of war.

This time in Vietnam was full of uncharted territory for the United States. On the technological front, guns were becoming much more reliable and efficient. Also, the topography of Vietnam was mostly worlds apart from anything the American troops had encountered in the past. This gave an immediate advantage to the less equipped Vietcong. It allowed them to engage in effective guerilla warfare, a tactic pioneered by the Americans in the Revolutionary War, through using their knowledge of the surrounding landscapes to “push the enemy into difficult and uncomfortable situations”. (O'Dowd) These situations included everything from tripwires to underground tunnels used to move around and ambush their enemies. This would end up making some of the soldiers question everything around them since when they went into the jungles of Vietnam, they were surrounded by traps meant to kill the American soldiers. The tunnels spanned for “thousands of miles.” throughout Vietnam and would often have to be cleared by one of the soldiers that happened to stumble across it. (Herring 154) Lee Strunk drew the short straw and as a result, he had to crawl headfirst into the tunnel. After a few minutes past Lieutenant Jimmy Cross “examined the darkness”. (O’Brien 333) The only problem occurred when Martha slipped into his train of thought and before he knew it “he felt paralyzed”.  (O’Brian 333) This train of thought stopped him from going into the tunnel after Strunk since just the thought of the opportunity to get to know her was able to overpower him. Since there was a chance that if he were to climb into the tunnel and that tunnel were to collapse on the two of them, he would never have that opportunity. This shows that there was still a slight amount of optimism among a portion of the men serving to lessen the load of emotional weight on their shoulders.  

Once Strunk emerged from the tunnel and jokingly made a ghost sound, “Ted Lavender was shot in the head”. (O’Brien 334) The story leading up to this event involved less commentary, discussion, and actions from the men, and instead described the supplies and gear the men carried complete with the amount of weight and space it took up. These descriptions act as a point of comparison between the weight and size of the supplies to show that the real weight carried is the death of Ted Lavender. Unlike the supplies, the death of Ted Lavender is something they will have to carry for the remainder of their time on Earth. As of right now “230,000 veterans currently have PTSD from the Vietnam War” for similar reasons to the death of Ted Lavender (Kavanagh 184). These kinds of events, whether they be as gruesome as seeing a comrade shot right in front of you, being in the middle of a firefight, or being in the middle of an explosion are not likely to leave someone unscarred and psychologically stable for the remainder of their life. Instead, they act as another metaphorical stone for these men to carry for the remainder of their life. 

When the next day comes, Lieutenant Cross decides to burn the letters from Martha in the rain right before they plan the day’s march. The first significant part of this scene comes when Cross burns the letters from Martha. This signals the end of the little bit of optimism he showed when he didn’t go after Strunk since in his head there was still a chance that he could make it back to get to know Martha. He no longer felt the same love for her, and realized the weight of his experiences will always be carried at a constant load unable to be lightened by any sense of optimism or comradery. 

The last point comes in the form of the rain the day following the death of Lavender. As they were planning the day’s march they came to the conclusion that “The rain might add some weight, but otherwise it would be one more day layered upon all the other days.”(O’Brien) Since this scene takes place the morning after the death of Ted Lavender, it is used as a symbol to show the extra emotional weight in the form of a slight bump in physical weight the death would add to their normal load. Also, since it mentions that it would just be another day, there is reason to believe that his death is not the first they experienced as a group. There is no way to tell exactly how many of their comrades died before this, but the fact that they viewed it as just another day where they were preforming the same march stacked on top of all the other days they’ve spent at war gives reason to believe they’ve been through a similar scenario before.

The amount of weight these men carry around, whether it be physical or emotional, is immense. On one hand, they are carrying well over a hundred pounds of gear that could prevent them from biting the bullet on that given day. On the other, they are carrying around traumatic experiences that could potentially weigh on them more than the dead weight of their gear, but at the same time some of the emotional weight they carry can’t be set down, left behind, and forgotten. This baggage can follow right behind them and be carried well after the war has come to its conclusion. It could come back to haunt them in the form of PTSD, but the most important point remains. These men carry around some of the heaviest, most difficult to handle baggage in the form of the thought and experiences they encounter and can never forget.  
