Personal Life In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

When authors put their pen to the paper to begin writing, they express themselves through their words. Through a heavy examination of a story the reader can frequently see that the author has expressed his or her own personal life into these short stories. Tim O’Brien is an American author who has shared his experiences of the Vietnam War through many of his famous works such as “If I Die in a Combat zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home”, “Going After Cacciato”, and the work studied here “The Things They Carried”. Author Tim O’Brien was thrown in the middle of the Vietnam War when he was drafted. During his tour of duty he experienced very gruesome and lonely things. O’Brien told the reader the things that these soldiers brought along with them
Therefore, bacterial and fungal infections of the feet were a major cause of outpatient visits and hospitalization. (Abe).
Tim O’Brien talked about these rough conditions in his story “The Things They Carried” and he said how wet and hot it was during his tour of duty in the Vietnam War. Also, the bugs and insects that lived within the jungles would drive a man mad.”Because the nights were cold, and because the monsoons were wet, each carried a green plastic poncho…” (323). This excerpt of the short story shows the drastic change that Tim O’Brien and his fellow soldiers went through and their bodies had to be able to handle it
Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” is a short story that allows the reader to see his and the company’s experiences that they faced during the Vietnam War. O’Brien walks his readers through the jungle with him and his company as they go through their tour. Most of the soldiers that fought in the Vietnam War were young men who were drafted to fight for their country. They experienced many saddening occurrences while they made their way through the jungles of Vietnam. During their tour they carried things that were sentimental to them and that helped them make it through the war, all the gear that weighed them down every day, and the emotional wreckage that the loss of a fellow soldier does to a man. The difference between the two weights is the fact that after day in day out of fighting in the war an individual soldier can lay down his or her gear and equipment to relieve themselves of the constant weight; however, at the end of each day the soldier cannot release the weight of a fellow soldier