I hope I'm not spoiling this

I really hope I'm not spoiling this novel for anyone, but Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is not coming back from the war. I'm not sure if it's obvious for anyone else but he is telegraphing all of the signs/tropes of a soldier who is about to die. He carries around keepsakes from a girl who doesn't like him. He has nothing of real import to go back to, nothing to fight to stay alive for. A lot of college students who are living away from home for the first time will understand, when you have a home to go back to you will remember all of the memories of it. The good memories will seem better, the bad memories will seem not as bad, but Lieutenant Cross only remembers these gray, ambiguous, memories without lesson or conclusion. It is definitely not helped that the movie Jimmy and Martha see is Bonnie and Clyde, where there is a looong scene where the two are shot to death by the authorities.

What the title refers to is all of the things that the soldiers carry that mean something to them; what they feel in the time of uncertainty is most important, or will help them to survive. Jimmy's things is a letter from a girl who doesn't love him. Then he burns it. He's got an expiration date stamped on his forehead. The burning of the past and ambiguity of his relationship is going to keep him alive a little longer, living in the present often does, but the damage is done.