The Heaviest Invisible Load

We all carry a load on our shoulders every day of our lives, a load that, although it is invisible, is a load that breaks our weak back. Sometimes, our burdens make us stronger, more empathetic, better people, successful people. They can even make us a better version of ourselves. However, it is our own burdens that end up plunging us into the depths of an endless well. Maybe every day we carry our backpack to school or work, with our cell phone and our clothes on top, dressing ourselves. Some women carry a child growing in their womb for nine months. Teachers carry homework and tests everywhere. An athlete always carries a bottle of water. A president carries his country. Engineers carry insane mathematical problems. Doctors carry someone else’s life. We all carry something different. However the heaviest burdens we carry are the thoughts in our minds and the feelings in our hearts.

Throughout the novel The Things They Carry the men of the Alpha Company carry countless physical items: Mitchell Sanders carries condoms, brass knuckles, and the unit’s radio. Norman Bowker carries a diary. Kiowa carry a volume of the New Testament and moccasins. Rat Kiley carries his medical kit, brandy, comic books, and M&M’s candy. Ted Lavender carries his tranquilizers. Jimmy Cross carries Martha’s pebble: “They carry whatever presented itself, or whatever seemed appropriate as means of killing or staying alive” (O’Brien 7). They carry M-14s and CAR-15s. They all carry pictures, ponchos, boots, weapons, razor blades, grenades, even hot chow in green Mermite Cans. They carry pencils, books, lamps, chewing tobacco . . . Henry Dobbins carries a Black Flag Insecticide. Dave Jensen carries empty sandbags that could be filled for extra protection. Lee Strunk carries tanning lotion. They all carry diseases and lice. 

O’Brien uses the list of physical items that the members of The Alpha Company carry in Vietnam as a window into the emotional burdens these soldiers carry. O’Brien plays with the intangible and tangible things that each soldier in the platoon carries with themselves throughout the novel. Although each soldier carries countless physical objects to survive the Vietnam War, no matter how heavy each item was, that weight did not outweigh the emotional burdens soldiers carry with them everywhere during and after the war. 

Being the Lieutenant of the platoon, Jimmy Cross carries all the lives of his men; he carries the great responsibility of being a good leader, not letting himself be defeated, and keeping his men safe. As the war progressed, Cross lost more soldiers from his platoon. Far from him carrying only the lives of the rest of his men, a greater burden looms on his shoulders: the burden of having lost more than one of his men under his leadership. Mitchell Sanders always carries the best narratives for any story. No matter how good he is at story-telling, Sanders carries in them all the suffering, humanization and high cost that a war entails. Kiowa carries the rational morality of the war. Although he died in one of the worst ways, Kiowa always carried a smile on his face. He carried the almost perfect representation of what it is to be human: a person of simple origin serving his country, who left an indelible mark on his brothers in the Alpha Company, especially Tim O’Brien. Norman Bowker was always burdened with pressure from his father to get medals or war honors. His back was so weak that his burden of guilt, regret, cowardice and fear made him break down and he commitedsuicide after the war. Rat Kiley was constantly burdened with the responsibility of assisting and saving the life of the members of the Alpha Company, a burden which became too much for him as well, which would eventually bring him his bane of losing his sanity. Curt Lemon carries the immaturity of a child who did not understand the War. He died very young, so you never really saw any growth in his character. However, he was unable to truly understand his position as a soldier in the war. Ted Lavender carries his anxiety, nerves, and tremors, which would never be known if he had overcome them. Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk both carry the promise to kill the other if seriously injured. When Strunk is seriously injured, Jensen refuses to kill him. Jensen’s relief after Strunk’s death is an illustration of the perspective soldiers are forced to take; If Strunk hadn’t died, Jensen would have carried the guilt of not helping his friend find relief in death for his entire life. Azar carries cruelty and mockery towards the War, which also led him to carry the blame. Bobby Jorgenson carries the responsibility for saving lives, but mostly the guilt of having stood still when O’brien was wounded. Unlike other characters, Jorgenson was able to overcome this burden, because as the war progressed, Jorgenson acquired medical experience and cared for his wounded in the best possible way; he never became paralyzed again like that first time. 

In addition to the men of the Alpha Company, Mary Anne Bell carries the feeling of a wild and adventurous warrior in her. Her shoulders were so compatible with the load due to the desire for adventure in the jungle that she ended up becoming it. Elroy Berdahl carries wisdom. Mark Fossie carries regret by bringing Mary Anne to Vietnam. Kathleen just like most ignorant people at that time carries the ignorance towards the war. Linda carries an incurable disease that would kill her eventually. She carries the innocence of a little girl, and above all the immeasurable love for Timmy. 

Just as importantly, O’Brien carries irrational thoughts, grief, guilt, youth, naivety, fear, and grief; what weighed on him the most was the love he felt towards Linda, towards his country, and especially towards his brothers from the Alpha Company. Despite the multiple burdens on his shoulders which haunted him since he was just a child, O’Brien was able to strengthen his back through his narration in different literary works so that he could carry all his burdens throughout his life. They all carry immeasurable loads of pain and grief, shame and embarrassment, cowardice and fear, dignity and blame. They all carry each other. They all carry with their own lifes. Nevertheless, they all carry the war and love with themselves. Some lost the battle against those burdens, others continue to carry them, and many more find relief in telling about their burdens in writing or narratives.

It does not matter all the intangible things that the men of the Alpha Company carried, or what the other characters in the novel carried as well. It does not matter what each individual in society physically carries with them each day. We all carry different difficult situations day by day. There is no load heavier than the one you cannot carry, that is why it is important to know how to carry those loads on our backs. But sooner or later, we realize that those things that we carry, in particular the intangible things, are the ones that make us human. That makes us feel anger, grief, desire, desperation, guilt, and mostly love. Now I ask you, the reader who hides behind these pages full of meaningless sentences and infinite words, what are the things you carry?