The Things They Carried is a thoroughly gripping book with a raw honesty that is absolutely haunting. Aside from the Bible, no book has affected me so deeply. I was not there in the jungles of Vietnam. I was not even alive when the fighting occurred. There are only a few people I know who fought in those far away jungles and rarely do they speak of it. Then I met Tim O'Brien. I met him walking through the jungle, pondering Canada, visiting his boyhood home, and remembering his dreams. He told me the truth about Vietnam.
He told me the truth but he took twists and turns in his story. He leapt backward and seemed to be going nowhere, but that is just when he would hit me hard and fast with his point. I wondered why he was telling me like this, and then I realized that is was t
He didn't ask me to understand the war because it cannot be understood. Instead he asked me to understand the men. I knew that was impossible; I hadn't seen it, done it, tasted it...you had to be there. I could sense that he did not want me to say that I understood; he knew I didn't. Not fully, the way he did. He just wanted me to listen and hear him remember the truth. He told me the stories over and over again to make sure I got it. The truth, the nature of his memory will now be one of the things that I carry.
he only way for me to understand. Mere words could take me to the jungle, but it was the dizzying truth that would make me feel the heat and confusion. He made sure I knew, that in war, "There is no clarity. Every thing swirls." (88). It was the nature of his memory.
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