Blog Activity of the Week 1:

While reading The Things They Carried, I did have a feeling that it was a much different war book than any other I had previously read. Considering the fact that I haven't read a book on war in quite a while, I do not know if it is my place to criticize. However it did in fact make me look deeper into the Vietnam War. I remember being in a class, in middleschool, where I researched the War intensively and even interviewed a War veteran. Alas, I do not remember much of what I had then learned and I am left with only a rudimentary view of the Vietnam War. This being said I found the book entirely enjoyable to read and am glad that I was made to read it.

I found that by reading of O'Brian's experiences, factual or fictional, I gained a portal of insight into what the war really was to the soldiers. I was living what he lived and was feeling what he felt. And I think this is really what made The Things They Carried a more different book than any other war book I have read.