The Things They Carried
"The Man I Killed"
"The Man I Killed" begins with a list of physical attributes and possible characteristics of the man whom O'Brien killed with a grenade in My Khe. O'Brien describes the wounds that he inflicted. The man's jaw was in his throat, he says, and his upper lip and teeth were missing. One eye was shut, and the other looked like a star-shaped hole. O'Brien imagines that the man he killed was born in 1946 and that his parents were farmers; that he was neither a Communist nor a fighter and that he hoped the Americans would go away. O'Brien describes the reaction of his platoon-mates—insensitive Azar compares the young man to oatmeal, Shredded Wheat, and Rice Krispies, while Kiowa rationalizes O'Brien's actions and urges him to take his time coming to terms with the death. All the while, O'Brien reflects on the boy's life, cut short. He looks at the boy's sunken chest and delicate fingers and wonders if he was a scholar. He imagines that the other boys at school might have teased this boy because he may have had a woman's walk and a love for mathematics. A butterfly lands on the corpse's cheek, which causes O'Brien to notice the undamaged nose. Despite Kiowa's urging to pull himself together, to talk about it, and to stop staring at the body, O'Brien cannot do so. Kiowa confesses that maybe he doesn't understand what O'Brien is going through, but he rationalizes that the young man was carrying a weapon and that they are fighting a war. He asks if O'Brien would rather trade places with him. O'Brien doesn't respond to Kiowa. O'Brien notices that the young man's head is lying by tiny blue flowers and that his cheek is peeled back in three ragged strips. He imagines that the boy began studying at the university in Saigon in 1964, that he avoided politics and favored calculus. He notices that the butterfly has disappeared. Kiowa bends down to search the body, taking the young man's personal affects, including a picture of a young woman standing in front of a motorcycle. He rationalizes that if O'Brien had not killed him, one of the other men surely would have. But O'Brien says nothing, even after Kiowa insists the company will move out in five minutes' time. When that time has passed, Kiowa covers the body and says O'Brien looks like he might be feeling better. He urges him again to talk, but all O'Brien can think of is the boy's daintiness and his eye that looks like a star-shaped hole.
How long does O'Brien stay at the Tip Top Lodge?
6 days
What does Jensen think Strunk has stolen from him?
A jackknife
What did O'Brien say he saw on the trail near My Khe?
A man die
What does Martha give Cross?
A new picture of herself
What does Kiowa teach Kiley and Jensen?
A rain dance
What does Kiley shoot?
A water buffalo
How long do the soldiers stay at the make-shift church?
About 1 week
"Speaking of Courage"
After the war, Norman Bowker returns to Iowa. On the Fourth of July, as he drives his father's big Chevrolet around the lake, he realizes that he has nowhere to go. He reminisces about his high school girlfiend, Sally Kramer, who is now married. He thinks about his friend Max Arnold, who drowned in the lake. He thinks also of his father, whose greatest hope, that Norman would bring home medals from Vietnam, was satisfied. Norman won seven medals in Vietnam, including the Combat Infantryman's Badge, the Air Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, the Bronze Star, and the Purple Heart. He thinks about his father's pride in those badges and then recalls how he almost won the Silver Star but blew his chance. He drives around the town again and again, flicks on the radio, orders a hamburger at the A&W, and imagines telling his father the story of the way he almost won the Silver Star, when the banks of the Song Tra Bong overflowed. The night the platoon settled in a field along the river, a group of Vietnamese women ran out to discourage them, but Lieutenant Jimmy Cross shooed them away. When they set up camp, they noticed a sour, fishlike smell. Finally, someone concluded that they had set up camp in a sewage field. Meanwhile, the rain poured down, and the earth bubbled with the heat and the excess moisture. Suddenly, rounds of mortar fell on the camp, and the field seemed to boil and explode. When the third round hit, Kiowa began screaming. Bowker saw Kiowa sink into the muck and grabbed him by the boot to pull him out. Yet Kiowa was lost, so Bowker let him go in order to save himself from sinking deeper into the muck. Bowker wants to relate this memory to someone, but he doesn't have anyone to talk to. On his eleventh trip around the lake, he imagines telling his father the story and admitting that he did not act with the courage he hoped he might have. He imagines that his father might console him with the idea of the seven medals he did win. He parks his car and wades into the lake with his clothes on, submerging himself. He then stands up, folds his arms, and watches the holiday fireworks, remarking that they are pretty good, for a small town.
"Night Life"
Although O'Brien isn't there when Rat Kiley sustains the injury that gets him sent to Japan, Mitchell Sanders relays the story later. When the platoon is in the foothills west of Quang Ngai City, they receive word of possible danger, so they sleep all day and march all night. The tension affects the men in different ways—Jensen takes vitamins, Cross takes NoDoz, and Kiley simply retreats into himself. For six days he says nothing, and then he can't stop talking. He begins scratching himself constantly and complaining of the bugs. It is sad, Sanders later remembers, and strange, but everyone feels the effects of the operation. They are chasing ghosts. One afternoon, Kiley almost breaks down, confessing to Sanders that he doesn't think he is cut out to be a medic, always picking up parts and plugging up holes. He mentions Ted Lavender and Curt Lemon, incredulous that they could be so alive one moment and so dead the next. He says that he is haunted by images of body parts, especially at night. He sees his own body and he imagines bugs chewing through him. The next morning, he shoots himself in the toe—an injury large enough to earn his release from duty. No one blames him, and Cross, the biggest critic of Kiley's cowardice, says that he will vouch for him.
When does Cross see Martha again?
At their college reunion
Who agrees to help O'Brien in his plot for revenge?
Azar
Where was O'Brien shot?
Backside
Why does the young soldier want to find Kiowa so badly?
Because Kiowa had a picture of his girlfriend
What does Kiowa say he wouldn't enjoy?
Being a preacher
Who asked O'Brien to write "Speaking of Courage?"
Bowker
Mitchell Sanders
Carried a PRC-25 radio a killer, 26 pounds with its battery. He carried condoms.
Curt Lemon
Childish and careless member of the Alpha Company who is killed when he steps on a rigged mortar round. Represents the immaturity of many young American soldiers in Vietnam and what can happen.
What kind of man does O'Brien imagine the Vietnamese boy to be?
Effeminate and into math
Why does Dobbins wear his girlfriend's pantyhose around his neck?
For good luck
What does Lemon demand of the dentist later?
For him to pull out a tooth
What does O'Brien finally decide to do?
Go to war
What is Cross thinking about after finding Kiowa's body?
Golf
What do the soldiers hire "poppa-san" to do?
Guide them through a minefield
How does O'Brien kill the Vietnamese man?
He blows him up with a grenade.
How does Kiley react to sleeping during the day and marching all night?
He breaks down mentally.
How does Jensen resolve the conflict with Strunk?
He breaks his own nose.
What does Jimmy do with Martha's letters?
He burns them
What does Kiley confess to Sanders?
He can't be a medic anymore
Norman Bowker
He carried a diary. Embodies what damages the war can leave on a person after it is over. Profoundly impacted by the death of Kiowa, kills himself at a YMCA
What does Dobbins do in reaction to his girlfriend dumping him?
He continues to wear the panty hose.
Why is it hard for O'Brien to mourn for Lemon?
He didn't know him very well.
What does O'Brien want to stress about Bowker?
He didn't lack courage.
What bothers O'Brien about the Vietnamese man's death?
He didn't really need to kill him.
What does Mary Anne tells Fossie after she'd been missing for three weeks?
He doesn't understand Vietnam.
What worries O'Brien about his potential flight to Canada?
He fears what his community will say about him.
How does the Vietnamese man react to the grenade?
He goes to run but stops to cover his head.
Why does O'Brien think he fared better than Bowker after the war?
He had his writing.
Why doesn't Lemon like dentists?
He had some bad experiences in the past.
How did Bowker commit suicide?
He hanged himself.
What does Bowker realize when he returns from the war?
He has nowhere to go.
How is Strunk mortally wounded?
He is blasted by a mortar shell.
Kiowa
He is practical, carrying moccasins in order to be able to walk silently and helping his fellow soldiers to rationalize their own unfortunate actions, especially O'Brien's killing of a young Vietnamese soldier. He also carried the New Testament. Dies drowning under the muck of a sewage field.
What is Jensen's reaction to Strunk's death?
He is relieved.
What does Azar do while searching for Kiowa's body?
He jokes around.
How does Azar react to the Vietnamese man's death?
He makes jokes about it.
What does O'Brien tell his daughter about the war?
He never killed anyone.
What does Cross think about while writing the letter?
He never wanted to be a leader.
What does Lemon do when he first meets with the dentist?
He passes out.
How does O'Brien exact his revenge on Jorgenson?
He plays a prank on him.
How does O'Brien react to Kiowa's attempt to comfort him?
He says nothing.
How does Azar react to the girl's dancing?
He sexually mocks it.
How does O'Brien imagine his response to his daughter's question?
He tells the truth, then lies.
How does O'Brien feel about the war after he graduates from college?
He thinks the war is wrong.
How does Dobbin's react to Azar's antics?
He threatens Azar.
How does O'Brien react to Jorgenson's incompetence?
He vows revenge.
What does O'Brien say he wants to accomplish by not being truthful?
He wants to elicit emotional truth.
How does Kiowa rationalize the Vietnamese man's death?
He was a soldier; it was to be expected.
What does O'Brien say to the woman about his story?
He wishes it were a love story.
Why would Dobbins like to join the church?
He would enjoy the community.
How does Bowker imagine his father would console him?
He would mention all the medals that he received.
How does Lemon react to news of a dentist coming?
He's scared.
Why does O'Brien decide to go to war?
He's too embarrassed not to.
Whom does Mark Fossie write a letter to?
His girlfriend
What does Dobbins wear around his neck?
His girlfriend's pantyhose
Which of Dobbins's possessions do the monks clean?
His machine gun
What distracts Cross constantly?
His unrequited love for Martha
What does O'Brien imagine his daughter asking him?
If he killed someone
What does Kathleen ask O'Brien when he gets out of the river?
If the old man is upset at him
"Spin"
Insisting that sometimes war is less violent and more sweet, O'Brien shares disconnected memories of the war. Azar gives a bar of chocolate to a little boy with a plastic leg. Mitchell Sanders sits under a tree, picking lice off his body and depositing them in an envelope addressed to his Ohio draft board. Every night, Henry Dobbins and Norman Bowker dig a foxhole and play checkers. The narrator stops the string of anecdotes to say that he is now forty-three years old and a writer, and that reliving the memories has caused them to recur. He insists that the bad memories live on and never stop happening. He says his guilt has not ceased and that his daughter Kathleen advises him to write about something else. Nevertheless, he says, writing about what one remembers is a means of coping with those things one can't forget. O'Brien describes when the Alpha Company enlists an old Vietnamese man whom they call a "poppa-san" to guide the platoon through the mine fields on the Batangan Peninsula. When he is done, the troops are sad to leave their steadfast guide. Mitchell Sanders tells a story of a man who went AWOL in order to sleep with a Red Cross nurse. After several days, the man rejoined his unit and was more excited than ever about getting back into combat, saying that after so much peace, he wanted to hurt again. Norman Bowker whispers one night that if he could have one wish it would be for his father to stop bothering him about earning medals. Kiowa teaches Rat Kiley and Dave Jensen a rain dance, and when they ask him, afterward, where the rain was, he replies, "The earth is slow, but the buffalo is patient." Ted Lavender adopts a puppy, and Azar later kills it, claiming his own immaturity as an excuse. Henry Dobbins sings to himself as he sews on his new buck-sergeant stripes. Lavender occasionally goes too heavy on the tranquilizers and calls the war "nice" and "mellow." After Curt Lemon is killed, he hangs in pieces on a tree. Last comes the vision of a dead, young man and Kiowa's voice ringing in O'Brien's ear, assuring him, repeatedly, that O'Brien didn't have a choice.
Why did Bowker not like the original published story?
It didn't mention Kiowa.
What does Linda tell O'Brien in his dreams?
It's okay that she's dead.
What does Jensen urge O'Brien to do?
Joke about a dead man
Who is sent to Japan?
Kiley
Whom couldn't Bowker save?
Kiowa
What does O'Brien leave in the water?
Kiowa's moccasins
Which soldier is dead in the tree?
Lemon
Whom does Rat Kiley write a letter to?
Lemon's sister
Jimmy Cross
Lieutenant Cross. Leader of the Platoon. He was in love with Martha and carried the letter that she sent him. Blames himself for the deaths of Ted Lavender and Kiowa because of his day dreaming
"The Things They Carried"
Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, of the Alpha Company, carries various reminders of his love for Martha, a girl from his college in New Jersey who has given no indication of returning his love. Cross carries her letters in his backpack and her good-luck pebble in his mouth. After a long day's march, he unwraps her letters and imagines the prospect of her returning his love someday. Martha is an English major who writes letters that quote lines of poetry and never mention the war. Though the letters are signed "Love, Martha" Cross understands that this gesture should not give him false hope. He wonders, uncontrollably, about whether or not Martha is a virgin. He carries her photographs, including one of her playing volleyball, but closer to his heart still are his memories. They went on a single date, to see the movie Bonnie and Clyde. When Cross touched Martha's knee during the final scene, Martha looked at him and made him pull his hand back. Now, in Vietnam, Cross wishes that he had carried her up the stairs, tied her to the bed, and touched her knee all night long. He is haunted by the cutting knowledge that his aff-ection will most likely never be returned. The narrator, Tim O'Brien, describes the things all the men of the company carry. They are things in the most physical sense—mosquito repellent and marijuana, pocket knives and chewing gum. The things they carry depend on several factors, including the men's priorities and their constitutions. Because the machine gunner Henry Dobbins is exceptionally large, for example, he carries extra rations; because he is superstitious, he carries his girlfriend's pantyhose around his neck. Nervous Ted Lavender carries marijuana and tranquilizers to calm himself down, and the religious Kiowa carries an illustrated New Testament, a gift from his father. Some things the men carry are universal, like a compress in case of fatal injuries and a two-pound poncho that can be used as a raincoat, groundsheet, or tent. Most of the men are common, low-rank-ing soldiers and carry a standard M-16 assault rifle and several magazines of ammunition. Several men carry grenade launchers. All men carry the figurative weight of memory and the literal weight of one another. They carry Vietnam itself, in the heavy weather and the dusty soil. The things they carry are also determined by their rank or specialty. As leader, for example, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries the maps, the compasses, and the responsibility for his men's lives. The medic, Rat Kiley, carries morphine, malaria tablets, and supplies for serious wounds. One day, when the company outside the Than Khe area is on a mission to destroy tunnel complexes, Cross imagines the tunnels collapsing on him and Martha. He becomes distracted by wondering whether or not she is a virgin. On the way back from going to the bathroom, Lavender is shot, falling especially hard under the burden of his loaded backpack. Still, Cross can think of nothing but Martha. He thinks about her love of poetry and her smooth skin. While the soldiers wait for the helicopter to carry Lavender's body away, they smoke his marijuana. They make jokes about Lavender's tranquilizer abuse and rationalize that he probably was too numb to feel pain when he was shot. Cross leads his men to the village of Than Khe—where the soldiers burn everything and shoot dogs and chickens—and then on a march through the late afternoon heat. When they stop for the evening, Cross digs a foxhole in the ground and sits at the bottom of it, crying. Meanwhile, Kiowa and Norman Bowker sit in the darkness discussing the short span between life and death in an attempt to make sense of the situation. In the ensuing silence, Kiowa marvels at how Lavender fell so quickly and how he was zipping up his pants one second and dead the next. He finds something unchristian about the lack of drama surrounding this type of death and wonders why he cannot openly lament it like Cross does. The morning after Lavender's death, in the steady rain, Cross crouches in his foxhole and burns Martha's letters and two photographs. He plans the day's march and concludes that he will never again have fantasies. He plans to call the men together and assume the blame for Lavender's death. He reminds himself that, despite the men's inevitable grumbling, his job is not to be loved but to lead.
What does Cross ask O'Brien to do in the book he is writing?
Make him look good
Mary Anne Bell
Mark Fossie's high school sweetheart. She gains a respect for death and the darkness of the jungle and, according to legend, disappears there.
Bobby Jorgensen
Medic who takes over after Rat Kiley must leave. Does not treat O'Brien's second gun shot wound properly and it becomes infected. So Obrien pranks him.
Dave Jensen
Minor character; claims Lee Strunk stole his knife, breaks his nose, then breaks his own nose out of guilt. Makes a pact with Strunk to kill him if he ever suffers serious injuries but in the end doesn't and Strunk dies on his own. Jensen is relieved of all guilt
Lee Strunk
Minor character; struggle with Dave Jensen over a knife causes him to break his nose. Dies because of wounds, goes against the pact made with Jensen that if either man were to suffer non healable injuries, they would kill him.
"Ambush"
More than twenty years after the end of the war, O'Brien's daughter Kathleen asks O'Brien if he has ever killed anyone. She contends that he can't help himself from obsessively writing war stories because he killed someone. O'Brien, however, insists that he has never killed anyone. Reflecting on his lie, O'Brien pretends Kathleen is an adult and imagines that he might tell her the entire story of My Khe. O'Brien recounts that in the middle of the night, the platoon, separated into two-man teams, moved into the ambush site outside My Khe. O'Brien, teamed up with Kiowa, noticed dawn breaking slowly, in slivers. As Kiowa slept, O'Brien, fighting off mosquitoes, saw a young soldier wearing an ammunition belt coming out of the fog. The only reality O'Brien could feel was the sour nervousness in his stomach, and without thinking, he pulled the key in the grenade before he realized what he was doing. When the grenade bounced, the young man dropped his weapon and began to run. He then hesitated and tried to cover his head—only then did O'Brien realize that the man was about to die. The grenade went off and the man fell on his back, his sandals blown off. O'Brien grapples with his guilt. He insists that the situation was not one of life and death, and that had he not pulled the pin in the grenade, the man would have passed by. Kiowa contended that the young man would have died anyway. O'Brien states that none of it mattered. Even now, twenty years later, he still hasn't finished sorting it out. He says that he sees the young man coming through the fog sometimes when he's reading the newspaper or sitting alone. He imagines the young man walking up the trail, passing him, smiling at a secret thought and continuing on his way.
What does Strunk ask Jensen to do?
Not kill him
What does Kiowa say to O'Brien after the young Vietnamese man's death?
O'Brien didn't have a choice.
"The Lives of the Dead"
O'Brien has been at war for only four days when the platoon is fired on by a village near the South China Sea. Cross orders an air strike and the platoon watches the village burn. Dave Jensen pokes fun at a dead old man whose right arm has been blown off and encourages O'Brien to do the same, to "show a little respect for your elders." O'Brien refuses, and Kiowa tells him he's done the right thing. He asks if the old man was O'Brien's first experience with a dead body, and O'Brien says no, thinking of his first date, Linda. During the spring of 1956, O'Brien was in love with nine-year-old Linda, his beautifully fragile schoolmate who had taken to wearing a red cap everywhere. He arranged for his parents to take him and Linda to the movies, to see The Man Who Never Was—a World War II film that contained an image of a corpse falling into the sea. When the movie was over, and the two couples had made a stop at Dairy Queen, they dropped Linda off, and the fourth-grade O'Brien knew then that he was in love. Linda continued to wear her red cap every day, despite being taunted for it. One day a fellow classmate, Nick Veenhof, pulled off the cap, revealing Linda's slowly balding head. Linda said nothing. O'Brien later explains that Linda had a brain tumor and soon died. He had known she was sick, but Nick was the one to break the news, saying O'Brien's girlfriend had "kicked the bucket." O'Brien went to the funeral home with his father and marveled at how strange and unreal it was to see Linda's body in a casket. He stared for a while, saying nothing, until his father, unable to address the situation, proposed a trip to the ice cream store. Later, O'Brien became withdrawn and obsessed with falling asleep. In daydreams and night dreams, he could make up stories about Linda, imagine her, and bring her back to life. In those dreams, Linda comforted O'Brien, telling him that it didn't matter that she was dead. O'Brien says that in Vietnam, the soldiers devised ways to make the dead seem less dead—they kept them alive with stories, such as the stories of Ted Lavender's tranquilizer use or Curt Lemon's trick-or-treating. O'Brien remembers that he saw Linda's body in the funeral home, but that it upset him because it didn't seem real. He says that he picked Curt Lemon out of a tree and watched Kiowa sink into the muck of the Song Tra Bong, but that he still dreamed Linda alive in stories and in dreams. In his dreams, when he was young, Linda waited for him and stayed alive, if just sometimes obscured by other things happening. In stories, O'Brien concludes, the dead live.
"How to Tell a True War Story"
O'Brien prefaces this story by saying that it is true. A week after his friend is killed, Rat Kiley writes a letter to the friend's sister, explaining what a hero her brother was and how much he loved him. Two months pass, and the sister never writes back. Kiley, frustrated, spits and calls the sister a "dumb cooze." O'Brien insists that a true war story is not moral and tells us not to believe a story that seems moral. He uses Kiley's actions as an example of the amorality of war stories. O'Brien reveals that Kiley's friend's name was Curt Lemon and that he died while playfully tossing a smoke grenade with Rat Kiley, in the shade of some trees. Lemon stepped into the sunlight and onto a rigged mortar round. O'Brien says sometimes a true war story cannot be believed because some of the most unbearable parts are true, while some of the normal parts are not. Sometimes, he says, a true war story is impossible to tell. He describes a story that Mitchell Sanders tells. Sanders recounts the experience of a troop that goes into the mountains on a listening post operation. He says that after a few days, the men hear strange echoes and music—chimes and xylophones—and become frightened. One night, the men hear voices and noises that sound like a cocktail party. After a while they hear singing and chanting, as well as talking monkeys and trees. They order air strikes and they burn and shoot down everything they can find. Still, in the morning, they hear the noises. So they pack up their gear and head down the mountain, where their colonel asks them what they heard. They have no answer. The day after he tells this story, Mitchell approaches O'Brien and confesses that some parts were invented. O'Brien asks him what the moral of the story is and, listening to the quiet, Sanders says the quiet is the moral. O'Brien says the moral of a true war story, like the thread that makes a cloth, cannot be separated from the story itself. A true war story cannot be made general or abstract, he says. The significance of the story is whether or not you believe it in your stomach. Heeding his own advice, he relays the story of Curt Lemon's death in a few, brief vignettes. He explains that the platoon crossed a muddy river and on the third day Lemon was killed and Kiley lost his best friend. Later that day, higher in the mountains, Kiley shot a Viet Cong water buffalo repeatedly—though the animal was destroyed and bleeding, it remained alive. Finally Kiowa and Sanders picked up the buffalo and dumped it in the village well. O'Brien expounds on his problem by making a generalization. He says that though war is hell, it is also many other contradictory things. He explains the mysterious feeling of being alive that follows a firefight. He agrees with Sanders's story of the men who hear things in the jungle—war is ambiguous, he says. For this reason, in a true war story, nothing is absolutely true. O'Brien remembers how Lemon died. Lemon was smiling and talking to Kiley one second and was blown into a tree the next. Jensen and O'Brien were ordered to climb the tree to retrieve Lemon's body, and Jensen sang "Lemon Tree" as they threw down the body parts. A true war story can be identified by the questions one asks afterward, O'Brien says. He says that in the story of a man who jumps on a grenade to save his three friends, the truth of the man's purpose makes a difference. He says that sometimes the truest war stories never happened and tells a story of the same four men—one jumps on a grenade to take the blast, and all four die anyway. Before they die, though, one of the dead turns to the man who jumped on the grenade and asks him why he jumped. The already-dead jumper says, "Story of my life, man." Thinking of Curt Lemon, O'Brien concludes he must have thought the sunlight was killing him. O'Brien wishes he could get the story right—the way the sunlight seemed to gather Lemon and carry him up in the air—so that we could believe what Lemon must have seen as his final truth. O'Brien says that when he tells this story, a woman invariably approaches him and tells him that she liked it but it made her sad, and that O'Brien should find new stories to tell. O'Brien wishes he could tell the woman that the story he told wasn't a war story but a love story. He concludes that all he can do is continue telling it, making up more things in order give greater truth to the story.
"The Ghost Soldiers"
O'Brien recalls that he was shot twice—the first time, images from Gene Autry movies race through his head, and he ends up on the lap of Rat Kiley, the medic. During and after his treatment, O'Brien appreciates Kiley's skill, courage, and ease. When O'Brien returns from his recovery almost a month later, Kiley has been wounded and shipped off and a new medic named Bobby Jorgenson has taken his place. When O'Brien is shot the second time, Jorgenson is incapable of treating his shock, and the result is a harrowing, painful experience for O'Brien. The realization that he was near death for no good reason leaves O'Brien seething—he vows to exact revenge on the frightened, incompetent Jorgenson. He spends more time in the hospital and then is transferred to the battalion supply section, a far more comfortable and less dangerous assignment. Meanwhile, his backside hurts and he is forced to sleep on his stomach and smear antibacterial ointment on himself several times a day. During the miserable nights, he renews his vow to make Jorgenson pay. When the company comes for a routine operation to where O'Brien is recovering, O'Brien meets the helicopters. He listens to stories from his friends—especially one about a soldier who decided to go for a swim and ended up with a disease that was later treated by Jorgenson—but he is most concerned with finding Jorgenson. Mitchell Sanders encourages O'Brien to leave Jorgenson alone, saying that he is one of the Alpha Company now and implying that O'Brien is no longer a member of the company. The next morning, O'Brien runs into Jorgenson, who apologizes for his inept treatment of O'Brien, saying that he was scared and that since O'Brien was shot, he has felt a great deal of remorse. O'Brien begins resenting Jorgenson for making him feel guilty. O'Brien attempts to enlist his friends in his plans for revenge, but the only one who will concede to get involved is Azar. The two go to spook Jorgenson as he serves all-night duty. O'Brien says the amount of fear one feels multiplies as one sits alone, wondering and worrying. At midnight, they jerk some ropes, which gives the illusion of the enemy in the bush. O'Brien identifies with Jorgenson and feels his fear. Later, they set flares, and when Jorgenson bursts from his position and rolls toward a heap of sandbags, O'Brien finally feels vindicated. He tells Azar that he's had enough, but Azar, who loves to make trouble, wants to finish what they've started. O'Brien has a flashback of being shot, thinks about being in shock, and once again resents Jorgenson's deficiencies. He resolves to follow through. Azar and O'Brien set off flare after flare and make a white sandbag move to spook Jorgenson further. But Jorgenson does not lose his cool—instead he advances toward O'Brien, calling out his name. Azar kicks O'Brien in the head, declares him pathetic, and goes off to bed. He later reconciles with O'Brien. The two men shake hands, and Jorgenson compliments O'Brien's dramatic touch and asks him if they're even now. The two jokingly decide to scare Azar.
"Stockings"
O'Brien relates that on ambushes, and sometimes in bed, Henry Dobbins wears his girlfriend's pantyhose around his neck. Superstitions are prevalent in Vietnam, and the pantyhose are Dobbins's good luck charm. With the pantyhose around his neck, Dobbins survives tripping over a land mine, and a week later he survives a firefight. In October, Dobbins's girlfriend dumps him. Despite the pain of the rejection, he ties the pantyhose around his neck, remarking that the magic hasn't been lost.
"On the Rainy River"
O'Brien says he has not told this story to his parents, siblings, or wife. He speaks of living with the shame of the story, whose events occurred during the summer of 1968. On June 17, 1968, a month after he graduates from Macalaster College, Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude, and president of the student body, Tim O'Brien receives his draft notice to fight in the Vietnam War. The war seems wrong to him, its causes and effects uncertain. Like most Americans, the young O'Brien doesn't know what happened to the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin, and he can't discern what type of person Ho Chi Minh, the president of North Vietnam, really is. In college, O'Brien took a stand against the war. The day the draft notice is delivered, O'Brien thinks that he is too good to fight the war. Although his community pressures him to go, he resists making a decision about whether to go to war or flee. He spends the summer in a meatpacking plant in his hometown of Worthington, Minnesota, removing blood clots from pigs with a water gun. He comes home every night stinking of pig and drives around town aimlessly, paralyzed, wondering how to find a way out of his situation. It seems to him that there is no easy way out. The government won't allow him to defer in order to go to graduate school; he can't oppose the war as a matter of general principle because he does agree with war in some circumstances; and he can't claim ill health as an excuse. He resents his hometown for making him feel compelled to fight a war that it doesn't even know anything about. In the middle of the summer, O'Brien begins thinking seriously about fleeing to Canada, eight hours north of Worthington. His conscience and instincts tell him to run. He worries, however, that such an action will lose him the respect of his family and community. He imagines the people he knows gossiping about him in the local café. During his sleepless nights, he struggles with his anger at the lack of perspective on the part of those who influenced him. One day, O'Brien cracks. Feeling what he describes as a physical rupture in his chest, he leaves work suddenly, drives home, and writes a vague note to his family. He heads north and then west along the Rainy River, which separates Minnesota from Canada. The next afternoon, after spending the night behind a closed-down gas station, he pulls into a dilapidated fishing resort, the Tip Top Lodge, and meets the elderly proprietor, Elroy Berdahl. The two spend six days together, eating meals, hiking, and playing Scrabble. Although O'Brien never mentions his reason for going to the Canadian border, he has the sense that Elroy knows, since the quiet old man is sharp and intelligent. One night O'Brien inquires about his bill, and after the two men discuss O'Brien's work—washing dishes and doing odd jobs—in relation to the cost of the room, Elroy concludes that he owes O'Brien more than a hundred dollars and offers O'Brien two hundred. O'Brien refuses the money, but the next morning he finds four fifty-dollar bills in an envelope tacked to his door. Looking back on this time in his life, O'Brien marvels at his innocence. He invites us to reflect with him, to pretend that we're watching an old home movie of O'Brien, tan and fit, wearing faded blue jeans and a white polo shirt, sitting on Elroy's dock, and thinking about writing an apologetic letter to his parents. On O'Brien's last full day at the Tip Top Lodge, Elroy takes him fishing on the Rainy River. During the voyage it occurs to O'Brien that they must have stopped in Canadian territory—soon after, Elroy stops the boat. O'Brien stares at the shoreline of Canada, twenty yards ahead of him, and wonders what to do. Elroy pretends not to notice as O'Brien bursts into tears. O'Brien tells himself he will run to Canada, but he silently concludes that he will go to war because he is embarrassed not to. Elroy pulls in his line and turns the boat back toward Minnesota. The next morning, O'Brien washes the breakfast dishes, leaves the two hundred dollars on the kitchen counter, and drives south to his home. He then goes off to war.
"Notes"
O'Brien says that "Speaking of Courage" was written at the request of Norman Bowker who, three years after the story was written, hanged himself in the YMCA. O'Brien says that in 1975, right before Saigon finally collapsed, he received a seventeen-page, handwritten letter from Bowker saying that he couldn't find a meaningful use for his life after the war. He worked several short-lived jobs and lived with his parents. At one point he enrolled in junior college, but he eventually dropped out. In his letter, Bowker told O'Brien that he had read his first book, If I Die in a Combat Zone, and that the book had brought back a great deal of memories. Bowker then suggested that O'Brien write a story about someone who feels that Vietnam robbed him of his will to live—he said he would write it himself but he couldn't find the words. O'Brien explains that when he received Bowker's letter he thought about how easily he transitioned from Vietnam to graduate school at Harvard University. He thought that without writing, he himself might have been paralyzed. While he was working on a new novel entitled Going After Cacc-iato, O'Brien thought of Bowker's suggestion and began a chapter titled "Speaking of Courage." But, following Bowker's request, he did not use Bowker's name. He substituted his own hometown scenery for Bowker's and he omitted the story of the sewage field and the rain and Kiowa's death in favor of his own protagonist's story. The writing was easy, and he published the piece as a separate short story. Later, O'Brien realized that the postwar piece had no place in Going After Cacciato, a war novel, and that in order to be successful, the story would have to stand on its own in truth, no matter how much the prospect frightened O'Brien. When the story was anthologized a year later, O'Brien sent a copy to Bowker, who was upset about the absence of Kiowa. Eight months later Bowker hanged himself. A decade later, O'Brien has revised the story and has come to terms with it—he says the central incident, about the night on the Song Tra Bong and the death of Kiowa, has been restored. But he contends that he does not want to imply that Bowker did not have a lapse of courage that was responsible for the death of Kiowa.
"Field Trip"
O'Brien says that a few months after finishing the story "In the Field," he returns to the site of Kiowa's death with his daughter Kathleen and an intepreter. He says though the field does look familiar, it is not how he remembers it—everything, he says, is dry. Kathleen complains that the land stinks. She has just turned ten and has received the trip as a birthday gift intended to grant her insight into her father's history. But though she attempts to act tolerant, she is bored. She can't understand the war or why her father fought in it. As she and O'Brien approach the field, Kathleen is amused by the interpreter's display of magic tricks. O'Brien reflects on the way the field, which now looks so different, could have the power to swallow his best friend and part of his life. He goes for a quick swim, surprising and disgusting Kathleen, who threatens to tell her mother. But before he leaves the river, he takes Kiowa's moccasins and leaves them in the spot where he imagines his friend settled into the river. When O'Brien returns, Kathleen asks him if an old man in the field is mad at him. O'Brien says that all the anger is finished.
"The Dentist"
O'Brien says that mourning Curt Lemon was difficult for him because he didn't know him well, but in order to avoid getting sentimental, he tells a brief Curt Lemon story. In February, the men are at work in an area of operations along the South China Sea. One day, an Army dentist is flown in to check the men's teeth. As the platoon sits, waiting to be checked one by one, Curt Lemon begins to tense up. Finally, he admits that in high school he had some bad experiences with dentists. He says that no one messes with his teeth, and that when he's called, he'll refuse to go in. However, a few moments later, when the dentist calls him, Lemon rises and goes into the tent. He faints before the dentist can even lay a finger on him. Later that night he creeps back to the dental tent and insists that he has a killer toothache. Though the dentist can't find any problem, Lemon demands his tooth be pulled. Finally, the dentist, shrugging, gives him a shot and yanks the perfectly good tooth out, to Lemon's delight.
"Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong"
O'Brien says the most enduring Vietnam stories are those that are between the absolutely unbelievable and the mundane. Rat Kiley, who has a reputation for exaggeration, tells a story of his first assignment in the mountains of Chu Lai, in a protected and isolated area where he ran an aid station with eight other men near a river called the Song Tra Bong. One day, Eddie Diamond, the highest ranking man in his company and a pleasure-seeker, jokingly suggests that the area is so unguarded and seemingly safe that you could even bring a girl to the camp there. A younger medic, Mark Fossie, seems interested in the idea and goes off to write a letter. Six weeks later, his elementary school sweetheart, Mary Anne Bell, arrives, carried in by helicopter with a resupply shipment. Fossie explains that getting her to camp was difficult but not impossible and for the next two weeks, they carry on like school children. Mary Anne is curious and a fast learner—she picks up some Vietnamese and learns how to cook. When four casualties come in, she isn't afraid to tend to them, learning how to repair arteries and shoot morphine. She drops her fussy feminine habits and cuts her hair short. After a while, Fossie suggests that Mary Anne think about going home, but she argues that she is content staying. She makes plans to travel before she and Fossie marry. She begins coming home later and a few times not at all. One night she is missing, and when Fossie goes out looking, he discovers that she has been out the entire night on an ambush, where she refused to carry a gun. The next morning, Fossie and Mary Anne exchange words and seem to have reached a new understanding. They become officially engaged and discuss wedding plans in the mess hall, but over the next several nights it becomes clear that there is a strain on their relationship. Fossie makes arrangements to send her home but Mary Anne is not pleased with the prospect—she becomes withdrawn, and she eventually disappears. Mary Anne returns three weeks later, but she doesn't even stop at her fiancé's bunk—she goes straight to the Special Forces hut. The next morning, Fossie stations himself outside the Special Forces area, where he waits until after midnight. When Kiley and Eddie Diamond go to check on Fossie, he says he can hear Mary Anne singing. He lunges forward into the hut, and the two others follow. Inside they see dozens of candles burning and hear tribal music. On a post near the back of the bunk is the head of a leopard—its skin dangles from the rafters. When Fossie finally sees Mary Anne she is in the same outfit—pink sweater, white blouse, cotton skirt—that she was wearing when she arrived weeks before. But when he approaches her, he sees a necklace made of human tongues around her neck. She insists to Fossie that what she is doing isn't bad and that he, in his sheltered camp, doesn't understand Vietnam. Kiley says that he never knew what happened with Mary Anne because three or four days later he received orders to join the Alpha Company. But he confesses that he loved Mary Anne—that everyone did. Two months after he left, when he ran into Eddie Diamond, he learned that Mary Anne delighted in night patrols and in the fire. She had crossed to the other side and had become part of the land.
"Good Form"
O'Brien talks about the difference between real truth and story truth. He says he wants to explain the structure of his book. He says that he saw a man die on a trail near My Khe, but that he did not kill him. He then says that he made up this story. He says he wants us to feel what he felt and because of that, sometimes story truth is truer than happening truth. He says that what stories can do is make things present. Imagining Kathleen asking him if he's ever killed anyone, O'Brien envisions saying yes and then envisions saying no.
Who is Linda?
O'Brien's childhood sweetheart
Kathleen
O'Brien's daughter and a symbol of the naive outsider. Her youth and innocence force O'Brien to try to explain the meaning of the war.
Linda
O'Brien's first love. Dies of a brain tumor in the fifth grade and gives O'Brien his first experience with death.
"Church"
One afternoon, the platoon comes across an abandoned pagoda that seems to function as a church. Every day during the men's stay there, which lasts more than a week, two monks bring them water and other goods. One day, while the monks clean and oil Dobbins's M-60 machine gun, Dobbins says that though he isn't a religious man and wouldn't enjoy taking part in the sermons, he might like to join the church because he would enjoy interacting with people. Kiowa says that although he carries a Bible everywhere because he was raised to, he wouldn't enjoy being a preacher. He does say, though, that he enjoys being in a church. When the monks finish cleaning the gun, Dobbins wipes off the excess oil and hands them each a can of peaches and a chocolate bar. Making a washing motion with his hands, he says that all one can do is be nice to them.
"Enemies" & "Friends"
One morning on patrol Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk get into a fistfight over a missing jackknife that Jensen thinks Strunk has stolen. Jensen breaks Strunk's nose, hitting him repeatedly and without mercy. Afterward, Jensen is nervous that Strunk will try to get revenge and pays special attention to Strunk's whereabouts. Finally, crazed by apprehension, Jensen fires his gun into the air and calls out Strunk's name. Later that night, he borrows a pistol and uses it to break his own nose in order to even the score. The next morning, Strunk is amused by the news, admitting that he did steal Jensen's jackknife. Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk learn to trust each other. They resolve that if one gets seriously wounded, the other will kill him to put him out of his misery. In October, Strunk's lower leg gets blown off by a mortar round. Jensen kneels at his side and Strunk repeatedly begs not to be killed. Strunk is loaded into a helicopter, and later Jensen is relieved to learn that Strunk didn't survive the trip.
What was Lemon doing when he was killed?
Playing with a grenade
What do O'Brien and Jorgenson agree to do?
Prank Azar
Rat Kylie
Real name Bob, platoon's medic.Eventually is overwhelmed with stress of the war and must go. Is the most effected by Curt Lemon's death.
What does O'Brien compare?
Real truth and story truth
What does Kiley say happened to Mary Anne?
She became one with the jungle.
How does the Vietnamese girl react to her village's destruction?
She dances.
What happens to Dobbins's girlfriend?
She dumps him.
What is Kathleen's reaction to the spot where Kiowa died?
She is bored.
Why is the girl dancing, according to Dobbins?
She likes to dance.
How does Mary Anne react to Vietnam?
She loves it
How does Martha react to Cross's profession of love?
She says nothing.
Why is the girl dancing, according to Azar?
She's performing a ritual.
What does Kiley do to get himself out of the war?
Shoot himself in the toe
What is Jensen doing while retrieving Lemon's body?
Singing a song
What was Kiowa doing when O'Brien tossed the grenade?
Sleeping
What does the Vietnamese man do in O'Brien's daydreams?
Smiles at him
Mark Fossie
Soldier who, by story of Rat Kiley, flew his girlfriend to Vietnam for some comfort. Eventually loses her to the war because she becomes so obsessed with it
Who is shot and killed?
Ted Lavender
What medal did Bowker not win?
The Silver Star
What do Kiowa and Bowker talk about?
The brevity of life
What does O'Brien say at the end of the book?
The dead live in stories we tell.
What is Kathleen amused by?
The interpreter's magic tricks
"In the Field"
The morning after Kiowa's death, the platoon wades in the mud of the sewage field with Jimmy Cross leading the way. Cross thinks of Kiowa and the crime that is his death. He concludes that although the order to camp came from a higher power, he made a mistake letting his men camp on the dangerous riverbank. He decides to write a letter to Kiowa's father saying what a good soldier Kiowa was. When the search for Kiowa's body gets underway on the cold, wet morning, Azar begins cracking jokes about "eating shit" and "biting the dirt," and Bowker rebukes him. Halfway across the field, Mitchell Sanders discovers Kiowa's rucksack, and the men begin wading in the muck, desperately searching for the body. Meanwhile, Jimmy Cross finishes composing the letter in his head and reflects that he never wanted the responsibility of leadership in the first place—he signed up for Reserve Officers Training Corps without giving thought to the consequences. He blames himself for making the wrong decision, concluding that he should have followed his first impulse and removed the men from the field. He feels that his oversight caused Kiowa's death. In the distance he notices the shaking body of a young soldier and goes over to speak to him. The soldier too blames himself for being unable to save Kiowa and becomes determined to find the body because Kiowa was carrying the only existing picture of the soldier's ex-girlfriend. After the platoon has spent a half a day wading in the field, Azar ceases his joking. The men find Kiowa's body wedged between a layer of mud, take hold of the two boots, and pull. Unable to move it, they call over Dobbins and Kiley, who also help pull. After ten minutes and more pulling, Kiowa's body rises to the surface covered with blue-green mud. Harrowed and relieved, the men clean him up and then try to take their mind off him. Azar apologizes for the jokes. Cross squats in the muck, revising the letter to Kiowa's father in his head. He notices the unnamed soldier, still searching for the missing picture. The soldier tries to get Cross's attention, saying he has to explain something. But Cross ignores him, choosing instead to float in the muck, thinking about blame, responsibility, and golf.
Tim O'Brien
The narrator and protagonist of The Things They Carried. Member of the Alpha Company . He enters the war a scared young man afraid and tells stories about Vietnam in order to cope with his painful memories.
Henry Dobbins
The platoon's machine gunner and resident gentle giant.
Elroy Berdahl
The proprietor of the Tip Top Lodge on the Rainy River near the Canadian border
How does Dobbins feel the monks should be treated?
They should be treated nicely.
How does the rest of the company respond to Kiley's actions?
They understand him.
"Style"
Though most of her village has burned to the ground and her family has been burned to death by the American soldiers, a Vietnamese girl of fourteen dances through the wreckage. The men of the platoon cannot understand why she is dancing. Azar contends that the dance is a strange ritual, but Dobbins insists that the girl probably just likes to dance. Later that night, Azar mocks the girl's dancing by jumping and spinning, putting his hands against his ears and then making an erotic motion with his hips. Dobbins grabs Azar from behind, carries him over to the mouth of a well, and threatens to dump him in if he doesn't dance properly.
Who is the narrator?
Tim O'Brien
Whom does Cross go to visit?
Tim O'Brien
Why does Linda wear a red cap?
To cover up her sickness. Brain Tumor
Where does O'Brien take Kathleen?
To where Kiowa drowned
What does Dobbins inexplicably survive?
Tripping a landmine
Azar
Unsympathetic, mean-spirited and cruel. Pokes fun at Vietnamese corpses. Represents cruelty as a defense mechanism in soldiers
What did Mary Anne do all night?
Went out on an ambush
What does Cross decide to do in the wake of Kiowa's death?
Write Kiowa's parents a letter
"Love"
Years after the end of the war, Jimmy Cross goes to visit Tim O'Brien at his home in Massachusetts. They drink coffee and smoke cigarettes, looking at photographs and reminiscing. When they come across a picture of Ted Lavender, Cross confesses that he has never forgiven himself for Lavender's death. O'Brien comforts him by saying that he feels the same way about other things, and the two men switch from coffee to gin. They steer the conversation away from the more harsh memories and laugh about less upsetting recollections, such as the way Henry Dobbins used to carry his girlfriend's pantyhose around his neck as a good-luck charm. Finally, by the end of the night, O'Brien thinks it's safe to ask about Martha. Cross tells O'Brien that when he finally reconnected with Martha at a college reunion in 1979, they spent most of their time together, catching up. She had become a Lutheran missionary and had done service in Ethiopia, Guatemala, and Mexico. She had never married and told Cross she didn't know why. Later, Cross took her hand, but Martha didn't squeeze back; when he told her he loved her, she didn't answer. Finally Cross told her that the night of their only date, after they watched Bonnie and Clyde, all he'd wanted to do was to take her home and tie her to her bed so he could touch her knee all night long. Martha replied coldly that she didn't understand how men could do such things. At breakfast the next morning, she apologized and gave him another snapshot, telling him not to burn this one. Cross tells O'Brien that he still loves Martha. But for the rest of his visit with O'Brien, he doesn't speak of her. Finally, as O'Brien walks Cross to his car, he tells his former lieutenant that he would like to write a story about some of what they have spoken about. After some consideration, Cross consents, saying that maybe Martha will read it and come begging for him. He urges O'Brien to paint him as a brave and good leader. He then asks O'Brien for a favor—that he not "mention anything about—." O'Brien responds that he won't.
Ted Lavender
Young, scared soldier. Takes drugs to calm himself down. Dies in the beginning of the story while walking back from the bathroom.
What do Dobbins and Bowker do in their foxhole?
play checkers
How does Kiowa die?
sinks into a shit field
