The Things They Carried 

• List and explain 5 tangible things and five intangible things the soldiers from you stories carry.

Tangible Things

1. All the soldiers in the story The Things They Carried, carried steel helmets.  “By necessity, and because it was SOP, they all carried steel helmets that weighed 5 pounds including the liner and camouflage cover.”  The necessity of the steel helmet is an example of an object they needed to help them survive.  It protects their heads in war situations and could save a life.
2. Specific soldiers found own personal things they felt they needed.  One soldier, Kiowa, found it necessary to carry the New Testament.  “Kiowa, a devout Baptist, carried an illustrated New Testament that had been presented to him by his father…”  To Kiowa the New Testament brought something special that helped him with his time at war.  It could have been the fact that it was from his father or that he felt the book had faithful meaning to him.  Either way it was a necessity specific to himself
3. Ted Lavender carried tranquilizers.  “Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried tranquilizers until he was shot in the head…”  Lavender felt that having the tranquilizers provided extra safety and protection for him in Vietnam.  He seemed to be a scared soldier and perhaps the extra weapon gave him security.
4. Rat Kiley carried medical supplies.  “As a medic, Rat Kiley carried a canvas satchel filled with morphine and plasma and malaria tablets and surgical tape and comic books and all the things a medic must carry…”  The medic carried these supplies because they were necessary for his job.  He is supposed to treat wounded soldiers and the supplies he has made it possible to do that.
5. Almost all of the soldiers carried photographs.  Photographs bring good, joyful memories to soldiers.  The pictures provide an escape from the world there in now which is filled with killing and bad things to a world of peace and happiness.  The pictures give the soldiers faith and idea that there is a better place than the one they are in now.

Intangible Things

1. “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die.  Grief, terror, love longing….”  Throughout war the soldiers see things no normal human being would ever want to see.  They see their friends and fellow soldiers being killed right before their eyes.  With this experience of war brings things like grief and terror.  The fear of dying and of not knowing when the war will end is brought upon all these soldiers
2. “They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing.”  One of the soldiers’ greatest fears was being embarrassed.  They would rather die nobly and courageously than stay alive because they chickened out of a battle.  The idea of being seen as someone who is a coward and fearful is the worst thing to the soldiers.  They want to be brave men and not be ashamed of themselves.
3. “Some carried themselves with a sort of wistful resignation, others with pride or stiff soldierly discipline or good humor or macho zeal.”  Some soldiers had a prideful way about them.  They carried their pride with them throughout war and didn’t allow people to see their fear.  They carried their pride to cover up their fear of dying.  Their pride was necessary to them to stay alive.
4. “They carried their own lives.”  The soldiers had to carry their own lives to protect themselves.  They had to watch their own backs and be cautious at all time.  It was their own responsibility to look out for themselves and keep themselves safe.  The weight of their lives was on their own shoulders.
5. “They carried the sky.  The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity.”  The soldiers had to carry these things in order to keep living.  They had to deal with everything that was going on around them to stay alive.  They had to be alert and able to handle whatever obstacles were thrown their way.

·              Answer this question:  “What do you carry?”  List and explain what you hump around life, both tangible and intangible.

One of the tangible things I carry around is my wallet.  I find this to be a necessity in my daily life for it contains such things as my license and money.  It is very useful and important in my daily life.  Another tangible thing I carry around is my chapstick.  It may not be a life saving necessity but I use it all the time and it is part of my daily life to carry it around.  Some intangible things I carry around is worry, stress, and pressure.  I worry about my family and friends because I would never want anything bad to happen to them and I don’t know what I would do if anything ever did.  I carry around stress caused by school, college, and sports.  Having so much to think about and so much going on causes great stress.  Pressure is also an intangible thing that I carry.  It isn’t so much about the pressure other people put on me but it’s the pressure I put on myself.  For example, I feel very pressured by myself to do good in athletics as well as school.  I feel if I don’t succeed in these I have not accomplished any great thing that’s worth anything.