The title of this novel is very significant and well
chosen. The Things They Carried details what men took with them to
the Vietnam War and into battle specifically, but in less detail also talks about the
things these men carried with them for the rest of their lives. You hear and read about
many Vietnam vets (and Iraq/Afghanistan vets for that matter) who say they had
unfinished business there, or that they left something
behind.
This happens in the series of stories too. There
is an overwhelming sense among the characters that they need to return, to make peace
with the places and memories that haunt them. So the greater message, or one of them,
may well be what the true hidden and human cost of war is, in the minds and psyches of
the returning soldiers who have to somehow come to terms with what they saw and did
there.
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