Fin.

“The Things They Carried” has two major themes. First, and this is true of any book set in Vietnam, it is about the horrors of war and the way that it changes the people who live through it. In Vietnam especially that change, along with the deaths and injuries that were more easily counted, seemed like a tragic waste of the young men of an entire generation. Second, the message of “The Things They Carried” speaks to the baggage that we all carry around; those things from our history that we can’t or won’t forget so we can move past them.  O’Brien eventually makes peace with his experience and puts closure to Kiowa’s place in his own story. This gives us all hope that we can do the same.