The Things They Carried, By Tim O'Brien
1. Rat (Bob) Kiley (the medic)
"carried a canvas satchel filled with morphine and plasma and malaria tablets and surgical tape and comic books and all the things a medic must carry, including M&Ms for especially bad wounds for a total of 20 pounds." (page 5)
2. Chapter: How to Tell a True War Story
a) When his friend, Curt Lemon, died, Rat personally wrote a letter to Lemon's sister for his condolences. it shows he was very close and cared very much for his friend. By the way Tim O'Brien describes this, Rat thoroughly wrote about his adventures with Curt Lemon, both happy and serious. (pages 67-68)
b) When the sister didn't reply back to Rat, he called her a "cooze." This word is far more obscene than *ahem*...female dog. The book stated,"He's [Rat Kiley] 19 years old- it's too much for him- so he looks at you with those big sad killer eyes and says cooze, because his friend is dead, and because it's so incredibly sad and true: she never wrote back." (pages 68-69) The impression I get from this, is how he uses words to cope with the loss and the grief of the war. It shows that he is still "only human."
c)How Curt Lemon died also showed Rat's personality. "...Giggling and calling each other yellow mother and playing a silly game they invented..." (pages 69-70) The book states Rat is 19 years old; still a kid according to the other soldiers. At the time, Rat and Curt were goofing around playing a game with a smoke grenade, while the unit was camping out in a deep jungle. The land was booby-trapped with things like Toe Popper and Bouncing Betties, yet the time seemed like "not even war" to the two boys.
3. Insight
Character: Rat Kiley was an ordinary person, thrown into an extraordinary (in a bad way) position. He tried to make the best of things, and had a good heart.
War: The place changes people; there are somethings that cannot be unseen or un-experienced. War is ugly, and has no morality. In the chapter, "How to Tell a True War Story," it says that any war story that has a moral, or makes you feel uplifted at the end, is a lie.
Life: People can be essentially good. They are just thrown into situations where there are no obvious answers, such as war. Events like war bring out the worst in people, causing them to kill other men. However, this doesn't mean every person is emotionless. They can still be careless, goofy, angry, humorous, loving.
