This paper examines "The Things They Carried" by Tim O' Brien, the story of 12 soldiers, members of the Third Platoon, Alpha
Company, Fifth Battalion of the 16th Infantry, 198th Infantry Brigade of the American Division in the Vietnam War of 1969. It looks at how O'Brien relates his and his
companions' desolate and fatal
experiences during that war and how he uses those experiences to explore the complications of memory and trauma, the most lasting of the things he and his companions endured, and which have remained with him to this day. It examines how it lists the many things they carried into war that were more real and terrifying than bullets, guns, grenades, and disease, such as the deaths, injuries, and sicknesses, and the overall brokenness they had to face in fighting.