Central Idea in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien

Lieutenant Jimmy Cross had his eyes set on Martha, who he wasn’t sure if she was romantically interested, but they wrote letters while he was at war and that kept all of his attention in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. This story reflects on the emotional and physical weight of combat. O’Brien has experience at war and was able to write a story that conveys the different events that can occur when stationed in Vietnam. Coming from someone who has had war experience, the story has more rawness and truthfulness to it than someone without real war experience.

The soldiers carry with them the necessary, standard physical army gear while others carry with them items such as a rabbit’s foot, or a girlfriend’s pantyhose for luck and ease. While the obvious correlation for O'brien's The Things They Carried is to speak about the physical objects each soldier carried with them, the internal 'things they carried were much more significant, including such things as personal doubts, fears, and dreams.

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Setting - The author based this story during the Vietnam War from roughly 1969 to 1971. A place where it is typically very hot and humid. The soldiers can be pictured walking their way through the jungles, enduring the smells of fungus and decay, they use machetes to slice a path through the tall grasses. They walked long ways, ending up in small towns where they would spend their nights together. The grounds were usually mud fields due to monsoons and the constant rain.

Lieutenant Cross had him and his men camp in the field of mud which, later on, they all realized they were lying on top of a field of human waste. “They moved like mules. By daylight they took sniper fire, at night they were mortared, but it was not battle, it was just the endless march, village to village, without purpose, nothing won or lost. They marched for the sake of the march. They plodded along slowly, dumbly, leaning forward against the heat, unthinking, all blood and bone, simple grunts, soldiering with their legs, toiling up the hills and down into the paddies and across the rivers and up again” (O’Brien304). Everything was unfamiliar to them. They were always exposed and never safe being in unknown territory. When fighting occurred the soldiers take refuge in the tropical foliage. They need to constantly be on their toes since there are booby-traps and mines everywhere. “Because the land was mined and booby-trapped, it was SOP for each man to carry a steel-centered, nylon-covered flak jacket, which weighed 6.7 pounds, but which on hot days seemed much heavier… Because the nights were cold, and because the monsoons were wet, each carried a green plastic poncho that could be used as a raincoat or groundsheet or makeshift tent. (O’Brien296)”

One of Lieutenant Cross’s conflicts was he blames himself for the death of Ted Lavender because of his longing love for a woman he's in love with. This is a woman whom he loves but isn’t sure of her love for him, but he fantasizes about her all day. He daydreams about walking barefoot along the Jersey shore, with Martha, being in love and hearing the waves crash along the shore. He imagines staring into her eyes and holding her hands, it takes him away from Vietnam for a moment and brings him happiness and warmth. All of this thought and dreaming keeps him distracted from his surroundings, resulting in Ted Lavendar being shot in the head. This was a wakeup call for Lieutenant Cross and he becomes more aware of his position as Lieutenant and how he should’ve been more focused on his soldiers. He was in charge, he should’ve been paying more attention, these were the types of thoughts going through his head. 'He blamed himself.... and now Ted Lavender was dead because he loved her so much and could not stop thinking about her' (O'Brien298). The soldiers also struggled together internal conflicts daily knowing what their fate may be. “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing—these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories... They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to.” (O’Brien308).

The central idea of the story is that the soldiers in the Vietnam War carry a variety of 'things,' some literal some more abstract. They carry rations and weapons for fighting and surviving. Beyond that, they carry sentimental items from home and what they feel like they need to keep their emotions hidden to put on the image of a tough soldier. These sentimental items provide them relief and an escape from their reality. Lieutenant Cross carried Martha’s letters with him which he reread daily. But when Lavender was shot on his watch, he knew he needed to stop his love fantasy and burned the letters. He couldn’t let this happen again. “No more fantasies, he told himself” (O’Brien310). “Until he was shot, Ted Lavender carried six or seven ounces of premium dope, which for him was a necessity. Mitchell Sanders, the RTO,3 carried condoms. Norman Bowker carried a diary. Rat Kiley carried comic books. Kiowa, a devout Baptist, carried an illustrated New Testament that had been presented to him by his father, who taught Sunday school in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. As a hedge against bad times, however, Kiowa also carried his grandmother’s distrust of the white man, his grandfather’s old hunting hatchet” (O’Brien 295).

Each soldier carries the burdens that come with war: death and fear of the unknown. Entering the war on the cusp of young adulthood, they stayed focused on honoring their military skills which at the end of their battle would transform them into men. They each have their external problems or inbuilt flaws that they struggle with every day out in Vietnam. After Lieutenant Cross’s realization of needing to protect his soldiers, he reminds himself that his obligation is not to love, it is to lead. He tossed the stone that Martha sent him, which shows us his change of character and ability to overcome his conflicts. He reminds himself from now on to show strength, not weakness, and be the leader his men needed from the start.