Themes In The Things They Carried

There is no absolute truth in story telling; everyone will see something you didn't, and everyone will interpret it differently. When Tim O'Brien is describing Curt Lemon's death he says "In any war story, but especially a true one, its difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen." (71) This is true in any story really, people tend to get mixed up when telling a story until it's a mashed up jumble of what happened in reality, what they were feeling, and how they processed it. He continues to say, "What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way. The angles of vision are skewed." (71) Technically speaking, every side to a story is true; the 'good guys' story is obviously going to differ from the 'bad guys', but just because they are different doesn't mean one is wrong. After telling the story about the baby buffalo, O'Brien says, "How do you generalize? War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead." (80) Everybody interprets and feels differently about every situation that is thrown at them; some will sit through hell with a smile and others will crawl through green fields crying about every little thing. Peoples' definitions of hell are different, so their stories are going to encompass different details.

In order to be a good person, you do not need to have a set religion; you just have to have a set of morals. In "Church" Kiowa and Henry Dobbins are talking about Dobbins' childhood dream of being a minister, "He shook his head. "I just don't have the smarts for it. And there's the religion thing, too. All the years, man, I still hate church." (121) The idea of church is hard for some people, personally, I hate the quotes  from the bible and the creepy songs and dances that people do at church; that is the part that makes it seem fake to me. I believe that religion isn't something that you should have to be taught and memorized, it should be more of a 'do what makes you happy sort of thing'. When asked about his religiousness, Kiowa says "I grew up that way." (122) I don't think that 'growing up that way' should be the way religion works, you should grow up being taught what's right and what is wrong and figure the rest out on your own. Dobbins perspective on this subject is very similar to mine; "All you can do is be nice. Treat them decent, you know?" (123) You shouldn't be forced into every aspect of religion, you should just try to be the best person you can be.