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A Common Soldier In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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People often reminisce about the decisive victories and suffering defeats of war, but the overwhelming horrors and tragedies of the actual soldiers are often overlooked. Because of this harsh truth, Tim O’Brien sheds light on the physical and psychological burdens on the life of a common soldier through his autobiography, The Things They Carried. Despite all the atrocities found in the Vietnam War, O’Brien still manages to appreciate life and all the people around him. Through all of this, everyone who reads this book can learn something new about the world around them in addition to something about themselves. Ultimately, The Things They Carried should stay in the curriculum because it truly shows the terrors and hardships of war, exemplifies …show more content…

Tim O’Brien experienced this first hand when Leslie, a childhood friend died at the age of nine.At that time, O’Brien could not keep her off his mind. He realized that he loved her after she had died even though the both of them were still children. However, the effects of her death can be seen several decades later.When the war was over, O’Brien still looks back to his time with Linda “And as a writer now, I want to save Linda’s life. Not her body-her life. She died, of course” (O’Brien 222). As a fourth grader, he knew that Linda was going to die, but could not bring himself to accept it. He wanted to spend more time with the person he loved. But by the time he realized, it was already too late. He recognized this again in the war “When Ted Lavender was shot in the head, the men talked about how they’d never seen him so mellow, how it wasn’t the bullet but the tranquilizers that blew his mind” (O’Brien 226). By experiencing the loss of the loved one, O’Brien is able to convey a message of appreciating other people’s lives. He wrote this book to convince people to become more aware of the ones in their life that make living worthwhile, and learn to cherish the moments with

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