Blog Post #5

The Things They Carried by Tim O’brien is a collection of short stories that somehow connect to his experiences with the war, being factual or made up we do not know. In these short stories, O’brien makes the reader truly think about what is happening in the story, while questioning the actual meaning of his words. “Friends” and “Enemies” are two perfect examples of this struggle. In “Friends” two of the men that are part of O’brien’s platoon duke it out over a stolen pocket knife. Initially I found the occurrence to be normal. Many men in the war became violent due to the exposure of killing. As the story goes on, we find that one of the men begins to go crazy over the thought of revenge. To even the playing field, he breaks his own nose. The men eventually become friends, and even more so brothers. They make a pact to end ones misery if they are injured so severely as to be wheelchair bound. Naturally, one’s leg gets blown off.  Jensen, a man of his word, knows that he should kill Strunk, but instead cannot find the will to do it. I believe that the fact that he knows that Strunk’s injury is fatal, as well as the heavy weight being put on his shoulder to kill his best friend, stops him from actually doing the deed. Considering that I have never served in the military, I definitely could not relate to the situation. In this instance, if I were involved, I could never kill my best friend. The guilt of doing such a thing would forever be in the back of my mind and haunt me for the rest of my existence.