Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Artavius Veasey Post #5: The Things They Carried

After reading this weeks section in the book I must say that this book has seem to surprise me from what I though I was gonna get from reading it. Among first reaction I expected this to be like any other war story book but surprising its not. Tim O'Brien take us within the story on a more personal note and was able to get more than one perspective on each character. The part that stuck out to me the most was right at the beginning of the first chapter page one. Where Lieutenant Cross states,

“She often quoted lines of poetry; she never mentioned the war, except to say, Jimmy, take care of yourself. The letters weighted 4 ounces. They were signed Love, Martha, but Lieutenant Cross understood that Love was only a way of signing and did not mean what he sometimes pretended it meant.”


This was a interesting type of relationship to me. I've heard stories of war and from soldiers. They said that when in war you're away from your family and love ones for months and months at a time, and you have to have something that reminds you of home. Reason being is because that is what kept you grounded and sane. I've noticed after reading the first few pages of this book that the other soldiers had random items from home that kept them grounded. Each item varied for each soldiers but those items meant a lot to them. Just as with Lieutenant Cross he has this female friend Martha that he loves so much but she doesn't love her the same. As a good friend Martha continuously writes Lieutenant Cross letters and he keep everyone at the bottom of his bag. As he thinks of Martha and reads her notes he pretends that they are love letters from her even though he knows their not. That's his way of using his imagination to use the letters he get from his female crush to stay grounded and make it through the days of being in war. Im excited to continue to read and see what happens between Lieutenant Cross & Martha and the rest of the soldiers.

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