The End

   After reading Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, I came to see that this book was not about a war story; its a book about storytelling.  Rather than being engulfed in a plot of twists and turns the reader seems to be whirled throughout O'Brien's brain as he copes through storytelling.  I feel that his mention of Lind, his childhood love, helps the reader to understand that although death didn't come through grenades and bombs, it came and with it came the need to cope.  O'Brien explains that he could make Linda come to life again in his dreams and in the stories he created.  This method of facing the truth seems to aid him tremendously after the war after the loss of so many friends.  I've concluded that the reader of The Things They Carried is more than a witness to a story, but a witness to a soldier coping with the horrifying story and happening truths of the Vietnam War.