Questions over "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien

The numbers below will vary, depending on which 1102 class you are in; they are, however, the same questions and will serve as our guide to discussion and as a study reference before the quiz. I appreciate the effort all of you made to deliver your work on time; this will be considered part of your daily grade/class participation for the semester. I've added a few comments in purple to some--but not all--of the answers. If a question has been raised by the student, it is in blue. I have identified no one by name nor have I indicated whether the answer is "right" or "wrong" or "complete." We will discuss these in class. 

1.  What did the soldiers carry out of the story/war?                                              Some soldiers carried things because of superstition. Lieutenant Cross carried his good luck pebble. Dave Jensen carried a rabbit’s foot and Norman Bowker carried a thumb that he got from a teenage kid.  For each different mission the soldiers would carry different things. When they went up to the mountains they carried carried mosquito netting, machetes, canvas tarps and bug juice. When they went on search and destroy missions the carried blocks, high explosives, wiring detonators and battery powered clackers.  For ambush missions the each took different things. Kiowa took his New Testament and pair of moccasins. Dave Jensen took night sight vitamins. Lee Strunk took a slingshot and ammo. Rat Kiley took M&M’s. Ted Lavender took a starlight scope.They soldiers carried more than tangible items amongst themselves. They carried a lot of diseases with them such as malaria and dysentery. They carried the land itself, Vietnam the place and its soil. They carried gravity; they were moving like mules and the carried their own lives.  These are all items they carried into the war. What did they carry OUT of the war, based on what you read in the story. Note: while it is easier to find direct quotations from the story to support your thesis, attempting to quote verbatim is not always the best answer to a question like this.  THIS question required critical thinking and inference, after reading the story.
2. Identify Martha. What does the reader learn about her--get as much detail on Martha as possible?                                                                                                  Lieutenant Cross had love problems, he loved Martha but he did not know if she loved him back. This love affected him greatly mostly his decision making in combat. When one of his platoon soldier died he blamed himself, saying his thought and love for Martha clouded his mind and had a solider killed.Martha was a English major at Mount Sebastian, she wrote letters to Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. She never asked or mentioned the war when writing to him, except saying, "take care of yourself". Martha gave Jimmy a pebble she found at the jersey shoreline for good luck. She played volleyball and Jimmy often thought about that image of her standing there. Cross realized near the end that she did not love him and probably never would. So at the end he tried to erase all memories of her and focus more on the mission and of the loves of his platoon.
3. In what way is this a "war" story?                                                                                                   This is a war story because mainly the story is about the Vietnam war. He talks about the missions they have during the war, and all of the different things they do on a daily basis. He talks about the soldiers and the different things each of them carry.
4. In what is this much more than a "war story?                                                          It is much more than a war story because the story analyzes the individuals. It really focuses on some their faults, history, and personality. The stories shows how human act when they are encountered with certain situations. It's important to consider what is meant by those "certain situations" and how this relates to this story. Also--complete  the answer for this question AFTER you (and everyone else) has read "How to Tell a True War Story."

5-11. What each soldier carries is both the same as every other soldier and different from every other soldier. Explain how thise different items define the role of each man in the unit; next, what inferences can be drawn about each man from his personal items?

5.  Jimmy Cross
What all the soldiers carry together defines them all as a group and brings them unity. However, what each soldier separately carries defines him as an individual and makes him an asset to the group and to the unity developed by each of their unique characteristics and things. Jimmy Cross is the leader and lieutenant of the unit. He carries love letters, 2 photographs, and a pebble from a woman named Martha. The two are not in love, but these letters and photographs are Jimmy Cross' outlet from the horrors of war surrounding him. These items define Jimmy Cross as a man who longs for love and a life beyond the boundaries war has created for him.Jimmy Cross somewhat isolates himself from the rest of the unit and does not seem to relate easily with the other men, but the compassion he displays in privacy for Martha is an emotion seldom found in war and this serves as a big asset as bringing the unit together as a whole. He is the leader, but he is blinded by love and eventually this blindness costs a man's life. This evidence shows that Jimmy Cross is a man that leads with emotion and does not see that the fantasies he is carrying is distracting him from the lives of men he is carrying. 
6.  Henry Dobbins
7.  Kiowa   
Kiowa- Kiowa carries an illustrated New Testament bible, his grandmother’s distrust of the white man, his grandfather’s old hunting hatchet, and a pair of moccasins.  Kiowa’s items seem to point out that Kiowa’s role was just that of a faithful soldier.  It can be inferred that Kiowa is an Indian, has high regard for his ancestors/family, holds a distrust of white men, and has faith in Christianity/his bible.
Side Note- I am confused about the wording when Kiowa’s items are being described. The sentence reads, “As a hedge against bad times, however, Kiowa also carried his grandmother’s distrust of the white man, his grandfather’s old hunting hatchet.” I was wondering if the hatchet was a symbol for the grandmother’s distrust for the white man that Kiowa carried or if the hatchet and distrust were two separate things? 

8.  Rat Kiley - ????

9.  Mitchell Sanders

In the "The Things They Carried", My in inference on Mitchell Sanders based on his personal belongings is that he is a "lades man" considering he carries condoms(1037) and starched tiger fatigues(1042).
Also based on his gear (PRC-25 radio) I learned that his role in the platoon was an RTO (radio telephone operator). I believe this illustrates Sanders as an intelligent communicator who gets along with his platoon. In addition, I concluded that his gear fulfills his personality in that he has a compulsion to "communicating" a "simple" moral to all scenarios of war such as the VC lying dead in the road(1042) and Tim Lavender's death(1046).

10. Norman Bowker - ????
11. the narrator - ????

12. What word (other than "carry" or "carried" is used repeatedly in the story? Why?
In Things They carried, the word things is repeated throughout the passage.Things is repeated to show just how much the soldiers had to carry in addition to military essentials. Things were not only physical but mental. Example of this is fear.  Another word repeated and repeated in the story is "WEIGHT."  The word is a constant reminder of _______ as well as ______.

13.  Explain paragraph 4--especially the ending of paragraph 4.                                    Lieutenant Cross had love problems, he loved Martha but he did not know if she loved him back. This love affected him greatly mostly his decision making in combat. When one of his platoon soldier died he blamed himself, saying his thought and love for Martha clouded his mind and had a solider killed.
Martha was a English major at Mount Sebastian, she wrote letters to Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. She never asked or mentioned the war when writing to him, except saying, "take care of yourself". Martha gave Jimmy a pebble she found at the jersey shoreline for good luck. She played volleyball and Jimmy often thought about that image of her standing there. Cross realized near the end that she did not love him and probably never would. So at the end he tried to erase all memories of her and focus more on the mission and of the loves of his platoon.

14. Why does the narrator take an almost casual tone in reference to Ted Lavendar and his death?                                                                                                                      The narrator takes an almost casual tone in reference to the death of Ted Lavendar because throughout the men's time in war they witness deaths' everyday. But these men were strong.  In this story there were two phrases that help support. The first was "they were tough." (1046). The men were tough, they saw this on a daily basis. They could not let this event bring them down or they would not be able to complete the task. The second was " By and large they carried these things inside, maintaining the mask of composure." (1046).  While the men might have been hurting on the inside they put on a face that masked the hurt in order to be able to keep going.

15. What two items in the story both weigh 10 ounces each? What ay be significant about that?
Question 15: Two things that weighed 10 ounces in the story were the letters that Martha wrote him, and a single round of the M-79 grenade launcher. What is significant about this is the fact that he loved Martha, and he wanted more out of her than just her friendship. The M-79 was a form of weapons. When using weapons, they had to choose the appropriate weapon to get the job done which would allow the soldiers to kill their oponents and stay alive. In both situations they had to play it safe, in order not to get hurt.

16. What is Kiowa's response to Lavendar's death?  (NOT what Kiowa says, but his response afterward) What is Norman Bowker's response? What does this suggest about the catharsis that is needed after Lavendar's death?

17. In lieu of funeral customs/traditions, waht do the men do?

18. What sacrifice does Cross make? Why?

19. What was the soldiers' greatest fear? Why?   
They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment.  Again, provide a specific example from the story IN YOUR OWN WORDS, not in those of a quote from the story.  

Find the followng quotes on the pages noted and explain what they mean in the context of the story and the significance of each:

20. "They carried all they could bear . . . " (1039).

21. "They all carried ghosts" (1040). .                                                                                                   When the author, Tim O’Brien, states, “They all carried ghosts,” I believe he was talking about the people they carried in their hearts and mind wherever they went. Kiowa took God with the bible he carried; Henry Dobbins carried around his girlfriend that he couldn’t hold every night; The other men probably carried spouses, children, parents, or even someone they might have killed while in war.

22. "They carried all the emotional baggage . . . " (1046).