“The things they carried” by Tim O’Brien is about men in the Vietnam War. The narrator, Tim O'Brien, describes what all the men carry, or in his words “hump”. Most of the things are typical things that you would probably suspect them to carry but varying from person to person some of the things that they carry are on a more personal level. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries a rock that a girl, named Martha, who he met in college, gave to him. He also carries two photographs of her. Lietenant Cross is in love with Martha and he struggles with the fact that she does not love him back. Cross becomes so obsessed with the thought of Martha that he loses focus of his first priority, protecting his troops. Ted Lavender gets shot after going to the bathroom and Cross blames himself. At first Lieutenant Cross still cannot stop thinking about Martha, she was still enveloping his mind, but after awhile he starts becoming depressed and he feels more and more responsible for Lavenders death. He eventually comes to the conclusion that “his obligation was not to be loved but to lead” (O’Brien 26.) He burned the photographs of Martha and her letters and he came up with numerous ways to get rid of the rock. Cross was on a new path and it didn’t involve love.
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