The Things They Carried

The first time I read this book was shortly after it was published and I was still recovering from what had happened during the Viet Nam war. I was so sure our country would never get embroiled in another war like that one, but when the fatalities and atrocities of the Iraq war started to mount -- and the revelations about how our government had lied to us and the world to justify pushing us into the war -- I was reminded of this book -- and I reread it, and have reread it again and again over the last few years. I think of the vets who've been in my classes recently and their stories of the things they've carried home from the Iraq war. And I know Tim O'Brien told the "truth" in this book, and I want to tell him that he succeeded: he did make the dead come alive through his writing. And I won't forget them.