My Most Humbling Experience
All of us have baggage that we choose to proudly carry or shamefully shove in our deepest, darkest closets. We have possessions that are extensions of our own personalities and each have our own sob stories just the same. They all tell their own tales and have great meaning. In the first chapter of The Things They Carried, with the same name, author Tim O'Brien simply, yet skillfully informs his readers of the literal and figurative things that his characters carried throughout the war, the outer and inner struggles they faced while in the heat of battle, and how similar men in war are to men in everyday life.In the literal sense, the soldiers carried a variety of things. "What they carried was partly a function of rank, partly of field specialty...to some extent by superstition." O'Brien alludes to a fact of life; his simple statement shows how what each man carries in/on his bag is partly due to his rank, just as men in life carry certain objects as a result of social status. Yet, even human fear plays a pivotal role, even when at war. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried a compass, maps, codebooks, binoculars, a .45 caliber pistol that weighed 2.9 pounds fully loaded, a strobe light, and for luck, a rabbit's foot and simple
M&M's for those wounds that are especially bad. Machine gunner, Henry Dobbins carried the 23 lb. M-60, as well as ten to fifteen pounds of ammunition across his chest and shoulders. Just as many average men carry standard and similar things in life, the common grunts of the unit carried the standard eight-pound, M-16 gas-operated assault rifle. Even the amount of ammunition a man carried depended partly upon how much each particular would psychologically allow himself to carry. This is yet another truism to life. "What they carried varied by mission. When This quote from the chapter "The Things They Carried" subtly shows how similar war is in relation to life. Just as the soldiers had to change what they carried depending upon their mission, people must change what they carry and how they act in order to survive in the battle of life. It is human nature to prepare oneself for challenges. O'Brien alludes to the fact the war is no different. silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried." After speaking about the gun power all of the soldiers carried, O'Brien concludes this paragraph with the afore mentioned quote. He casually reminds the readers of the mental burden that the gear placed on the men. He carefully lets the readers know that the physicality of war is not the true battle. Rather, the mentally sickening fight
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 922
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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