Comments on "The Things They Carried"

"There were red checkers and black checkers. The playing field was laid out in a strict grid, no tunnels or mountains or jungles. You knew where you stood. You knew the score. The pieces were out on the board, the enemy was visible, and you could watch the tactics unfolding into larger strategies. There was a winner and a loser. There were rules" - O’Brian

-This is one of the problems with WAR; I think that war should be like a sport... a football, basketball, baseball, etc...It should have rules ...rules that everybody follows...and like in a sport if broken there is a penalty, a foul or what have you. With rules applied to a war, I think that it would be much better because instead of death you would be "shot" (but not dead) and be taken out of the game ...pretty much like paintball. The only downfall with WAR is the Death, anything else is just legal... you fight for land of respect, or what ever you want.


“It was a sad scene when the choppers came to take us away. Jimmy Cross gave the old poppa-san a hug. Mitchell Sanders and Lee Strunk loaded him up with boxes of C-rations” - O’Brian

-This was interesting because it shows that not all soldiers are unforgiving and cruel, the soldiers appreciate that poppa-san saved their lives by leading them away from dangerous minefields. It sounds that poppa-san was a hospitable guy and truly wise and that the soldiers did respect him, which shows when they give poppa-san some food to help him and thank him for taking his time in helping the soldiers live on.

A Letter To My Family

Dear family,

Well how is it going at the house? What’s new? I am pretty tired we’ve been walking all day, and what’s worst it’s that it was a scorching 100 degrees and while we’re marching in line one foot in front of the other dust picking up clouding our vision we have sweat that pours in like rain from our forehead and we squint trying to make out the figures in the landscape. I also think I got burned …I think I’m going to get a rash. So how’s the weather out there? Is it any better than this one we’re having? Well I sleep at about 3 am at nights and sometimes an hour later than that, we have to constantly be on guard of our enemies so some of us take turns sleeping and we stay vigil and alert. It’s a good thing that nothing that bad has happened while we’ve been night guarding – well there was that one time where I was guarding, sitting down by the bonfire trying to get warm – since the night are terribly cold, feels like I’m going to get frostbite…burr - and out of no where a grenade gets thrown, it seemed as if time slowed down… I see it roll inch by inch…I start getting scared and freaked out….my heart thumps and thumps and I just got up and picked the cold unforgiving grenade and threw it back …I was so fast, automatic…and well after that my team woke up and retaliated back with a vengeance. That was some … day but don’t worry I’m ok and I walked out without a scratch … which is truly amazing, well I gotta go to sleep now.. YAWN….. I’m pretty tired. Take Care.