The Things They Carried, written by Tim O'Brein, is a story told through the eyes of members of a United States Army troop making their way toiled through the Vietnamese country side and jungles during the Vietnam War. Each man has a specific job and therefore carries with him specific items that he needs to do that job, as well as some mementos of home. These men also carry invisible baggage that is all too real to them, their families and responsibilities at home that torment their minds, the horrors of war, and the stress of the importance of fulfilling their duties to keep the men alive around them. soldiers brought from home individual items needed for individual jobs and sentimental keepsakes, such as Rat Kiley, the platoon medic, who carried a canvas medical bag full of supplies and Kiowa, a Christian Native American, who carried the hunting ax of his grandfather, a pair of moccasins and a New Testament. These items were as important as the overabundance of weapons that men carried to keep them alive. In a sense, the personal effects were mementos of home that helped the men combat the dangers and nightmares of war and without the comforts of life on the home front, the likelihood of the men surviving the mental assault thrown at them daily it would have been very high. were greatly reduced, in a sense, the memories born at home saved the lives of these soldiers. Each soldier lugged or “humped,” as O'Brien calls it in the story, different objects for different jobs. "Being a large man, therefore a machine gunner, Henry Dobbins carried the M-60, which weighed 23 pounds unloaded, but which was almost always loaded. Additionally, Dobbins always carried between 10 and 15 pounds of ammunition wrapped in belts across the high altitude. ...... middle of paper ...... and memories of home it would have been a harder struggle to stay sane and keep hope alive"" Battles are always fought between human beings, not for purposes": Tim O'Brien's fiction as a response to the crisis of modernity." Johnson. "Tim O'Brien." The Bedford Anthology of American Literature Volume Two: 1865 to the Present. Boston/New York: Besalsco/St Martin's, 2008. Print.Clarke, Michael Tavel Imperialism in Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried"" College Literature 40.2 (2013): 130-54. EBSCO. Web. April 28, 2014. Smiley, Pamela. "The Role of the Ideal (Female) Reader in Tim O' "Brien's The Things They Carryed: Why Should Real Women Play?" Massachusetts Review 43.2 (2002): 602-13. EBSCO. Network. April 28. 2014.