The Thing They Carried
The name of this story can barely describe all that was carried during that war. This story opened my eyes to the all that is carried during a war. Some people carry just the essentials and other carry mementos. Most of the soldiers carried their families in their hearts. All of the soldiers carried ammunition and rations. Some carried different guns and others carried drugs.
Jimmy Cross was the captain of this particular team of men. They try to make light of the situation they all face, joking around when they can. Other times they burn down and sack whatever village they pass by. The soldiers must check down holes and caves, they draw papers and whoever got 17 went down the hole.
During one of the hole explorations, Jimmy Cross is distracted with thoughts of Martha and one of the men is killed seconds later. This haunts Jimmy and he burns Martha’s letters blaming him. Jimmy had a pebble that Martha sends him, he plans to get rid of it after burning the letters. Seeing one of his men die changes Jimmy and makes him want to keep stricter order of his platoon.
The soldier get rations every week and start discarding what they don’t want or need. The one thing that they can’t discard is the horror they have witnessed. War is traumatic and can’t be forgotten by a lot of people. The carried all that they could and more.
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