Exploration 3- Evan Burkart

         My active reading is going well so far, I feel it makes me focus more on the book and look at things with deeper thought. I have been marking what I think is most important so far in the book and I understand what is going on a lot better than I would if I were to just read the book without marking things and finding important points. Something i noted was the part where the soldiers begin to shoot and destroy the water buffalo they come across, this part means more than some guys just killing an animal. In my opinion the buffalo represents Vietnam and how everyone feels about the war, the soldiers are just taking out their anger and stress on the animal because that is how the war is making them feel.


        The story that has meant the most to me so far is the chapter "The Things They Carried". I think in this chapter the author does a fantastic job of describing what the war was like and the impact it had on all the people involved. He goes into very deep detail about what the soldiers would carry while walking and describe what that certain item meant to each individual. In this chapter he talks about the feelings of his lieutenant and how he is in love with a girl back home, which one of the items he carries is a picture of Martha, the girl he loves. O'Brien says "In the late afternoon, after a day's march, he would dig his foxhole, wash his hands under a canteen, unwrap the letters, hold them with the tips of his fingers, and spend the last hour of light pretending." (page 1) This shows that even in a war all Jimmy Cross could think about was Martha.


       A character that I find interesting so far is Curt Lemon. In the chapter "The Dentist" Curt gets nervous when the dentist comes to check on the soldiers teeth and refuses to get his checked. Later he insists he has a tooth that aches pulled. I thought this was very confusing but after further thought I think that Curt just wanted to appear tough to everyone else, just like all the other men. They tried to hide their true feelings on the war and felt they all had to act tough and brave.