The Things They Carried

In the book "The Things they Carried" by Tim O'Brien, it talks about the literal things they carried and all the weight those items have. But the mental things they carry have infinitely more weight than the physical things they carry with them. These mental things include memories from back home, mistakes they have made from earlier in the war, and even girlfriends from back home. Sometimes these mental things were used to distract themselves from the war so they could mindlessly drone on and be in their own little world.

An important character in this book is Lt. Cross. He is very important because he is the Platoon leader and he is even distracting himself from protecting his troops from thinking about his girlfriend back home. While he was thinking about his girlfriend back home he actually got Tim Lavender, one of his troops, shot in the head. From then on he decided to stop thinking about the past and back home by only focusing on his troops and decided not to be loved buy his troops but just to be safe. What I think will happen to Lt. Cross later in the book is that he will soon not be able to completely get rid of his girlfriend from his mind and it will cost him either his life or on of his platoon members life, and the memories will haunt him forever because it could of been prevented if he was paying attention.