Savannah Edens

Ms. Benton
3
rd
Period
November 14, 2011

I read the book 'The Things They Carried by Tim O`Brien. The book was war stories
that he has memories about Irom being in the Vietnam War. He Iinds war stories unique, and
sometimes kind oI hard to tell. So he wrote them down and created a book. I represented this
book with a movie reel, with pictures oI diIIerent things Irom Vietnam War and a description oI
how it relates to the book.
I chose to do a movie reel, because it can explain the book very well. The book wasn`t
like any other regular story. I would have claimed it to be more oI a memory diary. Like a movie
that plays in his head over and over all the time. It`s a part oI his past that had a very big
inIluence on his liIe, it`s something he could never Iorget and hard to tell people, so he wrote it
all down.
I have multiple pictures oI diIIerent things that relate to the book. The Iirst picture I chose
was a copy oI the Iront cover oI the book, and then I wrote the authors name above it. The author
was one oI the main characters throughout the book. Makes since considering they were real
stories that happened to him. The second one I chose was a picture oI Main Street in
Worthington, Minnesota, which was the authors` hometown. The third picture I put was oI
Macalester College which was the college that Tim graduated Irom in 1968. In 1968 right aIter
Tim graduated college, is when he was draIted in to the war (June 17, 1968). The Iourth, IiIth,
and sixth picture were to explain a little bit oI what they did throughout their days in war and
what he would talk about a lot. They were pictures oI men digging Ioxholes, weapons that they
would carry, and helicopters. They would use helicopters to evacuate dead and wounded soldiers
and they were also used to transport supplies.
The rest oI the pictures were used to explain diIIerent stories that Tim told. The seventh,
eighth, and ninth pictures are oI aid stations and green berets who were special service men.
They explain a story that was told by one oI Tim`s Iriends in the war. He worked at an aid station
in the mountains in Vietnam and a guy snuck his girlIriend over to Vietnam to stay with him Ior
a little while. She got all caught up in the war and with the green berets and it ended up messing
up their relationship, so he sent her back home. The tenth picture is oI soldiers in a pagoda which
is sort oI like a church or worship center in Vietnam. The eleventh pictures are oI monks. Tim
and his men wound up at an abandoned pagoda, and there were two monks that who stayed
beside it. They really took a liking to the soldiers and brought them into the pagoda. The men
stayed there Ior a week or so, but eventually had to move on with their trip. The twelIth and
thirteenth pictures are oI trails and hiking soldiers in Vietnam. They did a lot oI this during war,
going Irom city to city and hiking through mountains and Iorest. It was very dangerous, with all
the homemade booby traps and unknown land.
I really enjoyed reading this book. War stories really interest me. I am planning on
joining the military when I graduate high school, and I like hearing about things such as war and
what these people do Ior their country. I didn`t quit Iinish the book, but I plan on it very soon.


O`Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Massachusetts: Houghton MiIIlin/ Seymour
Lawrence, 1990