by Stacy A. Padula 2001

Tim O'Brien's The Things they Carried put both my logic and emotions to great test. As it is a novel composed of war stories, one may automatically assume that reading The Things They Carried would be an enlightening endeavor, and an educational experience. However, I never thought that a book could captivate me the way that the stories in this novel have.

Speaking of Courage, is a featured story in The Things They Carried. This particular story is a post-war insight into the life of a young Vietnam Veteran. The main character Norman Bowker returns to his hometown after the war had ended. With himself he brings home countless amounts of experiences, memories, and thoughts that place him in a setting abstract from what he remembered as "home." Norman finds himself driving around the seven-mile lake in his father's Chevy reflecting...