Soldiers are always seen as war heroes and sometimes even as legends. But for Tim O’Brien, this is quite the opposite. The Things They Carried shares a story of a group of soldiers in Vietnam and along the way, many questions are raised towards war. One of the plethora of questions the book asks is if soldiers are heroes. Are they still heroes even after killing an innocent life? Being regretful? And are they still heroes even if their story may be fake? To start off whether or not soldiers are heroes, we begin with the death of an innocent boy. O’Brien accidentally kills a boy with a grenade having feared for his own life, but ultimately regrets it as he imagined the boy having lived a fruitful and peaceful life. The boy was fighting war and had possibly killed soldiers throughout his time alive. Although this is true, the boy was made to believe that he was fighting for a cause, not fully comprehending what that cause was, just that he had to fight and kill. O’Brien knew this, but only after he had killed the boy and regretted it almost instantly. O’Brien would’ve still been looked upon as a hero despite killing the boy, as the boy was an “enemy” and killed in the name of “war.” …show more content…
Heroes are meant to be strong, powerful, and unbreakable. O’Brien shows us the opposite of that when he begins to breakdown after killing the boy with the grenade. He not only regrets it, but begins to imagine a life he had before his death. He couldn’t stop looking at his deformed face and even thought of him later in life when he figured the boy coming towards him as he once did before his death. Heroes aren’t supposed to regret what they’ve done or even be traumatized, they’re supposed to rise above that and show their spirit. But, O’Brien clearly couldn’t show