A few months ago, I found a list in GQ magazine of 45 books everyone should read. About The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, the author of the article wrote, "(The book is) Vietnam with the bandage ripped off and not yet healed."# In his book, Tim O'Brien does to the reader what the war did to him; it makes everything real. Even out of all of the movies that I've ever seen on Vietnam, O'Brien's book gives the most realistic and jerking view of Vietnam.
As a series of loose stories-or not even that-loose trains of thought, Tim O'Brien takes his audience through a visual conversation of the men he was stationed with. In the first chapter, he tells of the things they carried. …
