Blog 3 JY

In the book “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien writes about the life of soldiers in the Vietnam War. He starts the book with a chapter describing the things that the soldiers in his platoon carried. The things that the soldiers carried were things they needed in the combat field and some were just extra things they carried were personal items. I believe that O’Brien put this chapter in the beginning in order to describe the characters in the book. The things they carried often described who the person was and why they acted the way they did. For example Lieutenant Jim Cross carried photographs of a girl named Martha. He was madly in love with her and this often distracted him during important missions which resulted in some soldiers dyeing because of his poor decision calls.
I believe in the end O'Brien believes that a true hero is someone that all people to have the freedom to make their own decisions. This is evident with Elroy who O'Brien believes to be a real hero. Elroy allowed Tim time to figure what he wants to do and make his own decisions. People usually tend to give advise, but by allowing O'Brien to make his own choices was better for Elroy to do.
Throughout the book O’Brien talks about different stories that happened in Vietnam. The stories talk about how the war changed people during and even after the war. O’Brien’s way of telling the story allows readers to see every aspect of the war not just blood and gore. The book goes in depth into the minds of the soldiers and how the Vietnam War changed them. One particular chapter explains that all the stories the soldiers tell have some truth. These truths can be more true that what actually happened, because they last forever while memories can fade. The stories are fiction, but in a way they allow us to truly see the true feelings that they felt. O'Brien believes that by making this book fiction it makes it truer than factual occurrences.
He ends the book with the story of a girl he liked during the 4th grade. They both were in love with each other and went on a date to the movies. Later he found out that she had brain tumor and that she died. He tells this story because he wants to feel that she is still alive. That is why he writes books about the Vietnam War and the people that died in the war. When he writes the stories they are still alive and he can relive the events they had together. This sums up the book by explaining why he wrote this book and the other ones as well.
A chapter that stood out to me was "Field Trip" when O'Brien and Kathleen, his child, go to the same place Kiowa died. I believe that this sums up O'Brien's idea that stories are truer than the truth. The place where Kiowa died has changed and is very different from what it used to be. This shows that the factual truth will also change and cannot permanently last, but story truth will last for an eternity.