Death is a huge theme throughout The Things They Carried. Almost every storied told by Tim O’Brien contains death in some form or another. Many of the stories discuss how children’s innocence has been lost because of witnessing death. Tim O’Brien was young at the time when he was exposed to death. Having just joined the army, he never would have imagined experiencing what he saw.
This is just one of many ways that war destroys lives. Tim O’Brien lost his youth because of what he saw in the war. He was forced to grow up very quickly compared to other kids. It becomes evident just how much trauma Tim and his fellow soldiers went through when he describes moving all of the dead bodies. He gives great detail about the experience, as if to make the reader feel that they are there. Such as the way he discusses the smell.
This is the true reality of the war. This is reinforced by the death of Curt Lemon. This was possibly one of the most graphic and disturbing stories in the entire book. Nobody should ever have to go through witnessing his or her friend getting killed by a land mine. It wasn’t only the fact that he witnessed the death, but he then had to scrape pieces of his friend’s body off of a tree. This is just one of many experiences that a person should never have to go through. This reinforces the phrase “Death Sucks”.
There was one other experience worth noting. This occurred after an air strike was called in a village along the South China Sea. There was only one casualty of this attack. Everyone in Jimmy Cross’s platoon went up to this guy and shook his hand and played with the guy. Tim refused. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. He took a lot of abuse from the rest of his platoon, but Kiowa helped him get through it.
In conclusion, what the soldiers went through in Vietnam, nobody should ever have to experience. They saw unimaginable things. Things that destroyed their youth and tore their innocence away from them.
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