Soldiers at War

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses the message in "The Things They Carried" that soldiers need a balance between realistic and fantastic elements to survive during wartime. The paper explains that soldiers need to be aware of what their function at war is, but fantasies help them dream and hope and maintain human characteristics even at war.

From the Paper:

"The balance between what the soldiers carry is significant since their real elements enable them to perform at war while their fantastic objects offer them the ability to remember what they left back home. For example, since Jimmy Cross outranks the others, he carries lighter weight items: "a compass, maps, code books, binoculars, and a .45-caliber pistol that weighed 2.9 pounds fully loaded." Lt. Cross, however, also carries "the responsibility of his men." Apart from these real elements, Lt. Cross also fantasizes with elements such as the memory of Martha. "He would imagine romantic camping trips into the White Mountains in New Hampshire."(127) Meanwhile, Lavender carried "more than twenty pounds of ammunition, plus the flak jacket and helmet and rations and water and toilet paper and tranquilizers." O'Brien adds one more item, even heavier than all that precedes it because it lacks a specific weight and therefore is infinitely heavy--"the unweighed fear.""

More papers on Soldiers at War:

• Term Paper # 114579 : "American Soldiers Post-War"
• Analytical Essay # 139991 : "Cultural Understanding in the Gulf War and the Iraq War"
• Book Review # 57859 : "Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War"

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