Death As a Means of Character Development
             War changes people. It is the same every time, in every movie, every story, and every book. People are one way before they go to war, then they change, and in most cases, they cannot change back. We all have our lives. We have our houses and apartments, dorm rooms, and fraternity or sorority rooms. We have our jobs and our families, classes and responsibilities. Now imagine suddenly being taken away from the comfort of the life you know without any warning, except for the declaration of war. You come home one day and find a notice to report for a physical examination immediately in your mailbox. You go, you pass, and then you receive the induction notice: "You are hereby ordered for induction into the Armed Forces of the United States" (Excerpt from a Vietnam induction notice).
             There is nothing fair about this. You did not declare war and you did not even have anything against the people your country is fighting. You were minding your own business, they were minding their's. So why were you picked? You cannot think of any good reason other than the fact that your name was randomly picked from thousands of others. So, that's it, off to war with you. In a way, it's like being sent to prison, minus the crime. You lose your family and friends for a few years and have to go to some place that will likely be very, very unpleasant. You are going to be expected to do things to stay alive that would normally never have crossed your mind. Quickly, death moves in all around you and you feel yourself start to change. This is what Tim O'Brien experienced and is what the majority of his writing relates to.
             The men in Tim O'Brien's story "The Things They Carried" find themselves in exactly the type of situation described above: Thrown into an enemy country to fight and to be killed for their country. Throughout the story, O'Brie...