The Things They Carried

We are ready to represent the best custom paper writing assistance that can cope with any task like The Things They Carried even at the eleventh hour. The matter is that we posses the greatest base of expert writers. Our staff of freelance writers includes approximately 300 experienced writers are at your disposal all year round. They are striving to provide the best ever services to the most desperate students that have already lost the hope for academic success. We offer the range of the most widely required, however, not recommended for college use papers. It is advisable to use our examples like The Things They Carried in learning at public-education level. Get prepared and be smart with our best essay samples cheap and fast! Get in touch and we will write excellent custom coursework or essay especially for you.

The Things They Carried is an assortment of stories about the Vietnam War. This book centers around the relationships the men make and formed in Vietnam. The stories aren’t war stories; they are stories about love, respect and the networks made between the men when they spend each day trying to stay alive.


Jimmy Cross is the leader of the group and he carries a picture of a Martha, a girl who writes him from back in the states where he lives. There is no real relationship between the two and Jimmy knows this, but he uses the picture the help keep some kind of connection to the world he knows back in the states. He creates stories in his head about what will happen when he makes it back home, alive and well.


The men rely on each other for entertainment to break up the endless days of marching though the Vietnam wilderness. With hours and hours of marching and no action the men need a release or the boredom would drive them crazy. An example of this is Kiowa teaching a rain dance to Rat Kiley and Dave Jensen, the three of them leaping around barefoot while a bunch of villagers looked on with a mixture of fascination and giggly horror (OBrien, 6). They play checkers and tell stories. These men looked to each other for emotional support and reassurance since none was coming from the home front.








One of the most important things that helped the soldiers through the war was their friendship with each other. This bond that the soldiers formed helped them to survive, and helped the men of Alpha Company to cope with the war after they returned to the United States. The bond that men form with each other in the heat of battle is incomprehensible to those who have not experienced warfare for themselves...You make close friends. You become part of a tribe and you share the same blood - you give it together, you take it together. (OBrien, 1) This bond of friendship helps the men of Alpha Company survive on a day to day basis. The men have the same experiences, fears and hopes. They rely on each other for support to face the new day. The men show this support as they talk about home, their sweethearts and their dead friends. The men come together to joke about death, making light of a situation that surrounds them at all times.


The men of Alpha Company trusted each other with their lives. Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk are a good example of this trust, In late August they made a pact that if one of them should ever get totally fucked up - a wheelchair wound - the other guy would automatically find a way to end it (OBrien, 65). This pact allowed the two men a measure of peace, confident in the knowledge that if it came down to living their entire life in a wheel chair, the other would end it there in Vietnam. The men trusted each other enough to make a pack the could cost them their lives. The men trusted each other to make no mistakes because one mistake could cause someone to lose their life. He pictured Kiowas face. Theyd been close buddies, the tightest...He remembered switching on his flashlight. A stupid thing to do, but he did it anyway, and he remembered Kiowa leaning in for a look at the picture - Hey, shes cute, hed said - and then the field exploded all around them. Like murder, the boy thought. The flashlight made it happen. Dumb and dangerous. And as a result his friend Kiowa was dead. (OBrien, 170) This trust of the soldiers in each other with their lives created the friendship and bond that helped them survive each day in Vietnam.





Jimmy Cross burned his treasured photos and letters from Martha because he feared that he was letting down the men. When Ted Lavender was killed he blamed him self for not paying closer attention to the situation. He knew that the men trusted him to make the right decision, to take the right path. He held their lives in his hands and he didnt want to break that trust, so he burned the things that he treasured most, the objects that had seemed like his safety rope.


This friendship and bond that the soldiers form in combat is also seen when the Narrator is wounded. He leaves Alpha Company but meets up with the men at Base Camp. The Narrator feels like he is not part of the group anymore. In a way, I envied him - all of them. Their deep bush tans, the sores and blisters, the stories, the in-it-togetherness. I felt close to them, yes, but I also felt a new sense of separation (OBrien, 14). The men of Alpha Company still recognized the Narrator as a friend, but since he was not out in the bush risking his neck everyday, the friendship was different. Thats how I felt - like a civilian - and it made me sad. These guys had been my brothers. Wed loved one another. (OBrien, 14) The Narrator not only feels like he is not part of this special bond of soldiers in the field, but finds out that he is replaced by another. The men feel that the Narrator is like a civilian in a way. He wasnt out in the field when they where getting shot at, he did not live in constant fear of a bullet. It goes back to earlier in the book when the Narrator himself states that no one can understand the bond between the men unless they where there to experience situation first hand. From this point in the novel the Narrator finishes his tour feeling he does not belong after losing this bond with his comrades. If this happened while he was in the battlefield, the Narrator might not have survived the war.





The bond formed between the men of Alpha Company also helps them to survive when they come back to the United States. When the soldiers returned from the war they find a country that does not want to talk about the war and is even trying to forget it happened. Norman Bowker is a prime example of this. When he returned from the war he went back to his home town. There was no parade, no group of people gather to hear about the brave things he did for his country. Norman felt lost in his own town, he spent hour after hour circling the lake like he did as a teenager. He rehearsed what he wanted he say in his head, the stories he wanted to tell, but he knew no one could really understand what he had to say. Norman Bowker turns to the Narrator to help him express his feelings. Both men are in the opinion that the memories are like poison, that to survive they must be released. The soldiers feel that the only people they can talk to about the war are their brothers, the other men who experienced the Vietnam War. The friendship and kinship that grew in the jungles of Vietnam survived and lived on here in the United States. By talking to each other, the soldiers help to sort out the incidents that happened in the War and to put these incidents behind them. The thing to do, we decided, was to forget the coffee and switch to gin, which improved the mood, and not much later we were laughing at some of the craziness that used to go on (OBrien, 7).





The Narrator returns to the field where Kiowa lost his life years after the war has ended. The bond that they shared followed him home after the war and stayed with him. he returned to the shit field, a place that holds only bad memories and makes peace with field and in a way with the country itself.


The friendships and bonds that formed in the jungles of Vietnam between the members of Alpha Company help them to survive on a day to day basis. Not only while they were in Vietnam, but also in dealing with their lives back in the United States. Without the bonds of friendship none of the men of Alpha Company would have survived mentally or physically the strains and trauma of the Vietnam War. In the end it is realized that the men not only carried their gear and weapons, but they carried with them bonds, friendship and a connection that only the men of Alpha Company will ever really understand.





Mind that the sample papers like The Things They Carried presented are to be used for review only. In order to warn you and eliminate any plagiarism writing intentions, it is highly recommended not to use the essays in class. In cases you experience difficulties with essay writing in class and for in class use, order original papers with our expert writers. Cheap custom papers can be written from scratch for each customer that entrusts his or her academic success to our writing team. Order your unique assignment from the best custom writing services cheap and fast!