The Things They Carried Stories 18 - 22
Good Form
Tim says that he is forty-three now and that a long time ago he had walked through Vietnam as a soldier. Everything else was made up. He never killed a man on the trail, but he had been present. He believes that means he was guilty. When his daughter asks him if he had killed a man, he could honestly say no, but he could also truthfully say yes.
Field Trip
Tim went to Vietnam with his ten-year-old daughter, Kathleen, after he wrote a short story, In the Field. They were pressed for time and he had to choose where he had to go. He had chosen to go to the field where Kiowa had died. Now, it looked just like an ordinary field, and a lot smaller than what he remembered. Kiowa was Tim’s closest friend, and his death left a coldness inside him that he still hadn’t yet overcome. Kathleen urges her father to hurry up so that they can leave. Tim takes a bundle from the car which contains the Kiowa’s moccasins. He wades into the shallow river despite Kathleen’s protests and buries the moccasins in the river close to where Kiowa’s rucksack had been found.
The Ghost Soldiers
Tim had received two bullet wounds during his time in Vietnam, the first bullet wound hadn’t been so terrible since Rat Kiley had treated him for it quickly. After he returned from a short duration of rest, Tim received a second bullet wound, but he no longer had Rat Kiley’s help. Rat Kiley was sent away during Tim’s away, and he was then replaced by Bobby Jorgenson, who was fatally inexperienced. Tim screamed for a medic for ten whole minutes before Bobby Jorgenson could muster up the courage to come to him and treat him. Tim was shot in one of his butt cheeks, and the wound became infected with gangrene because of how long it took Bobby Jorgensen to apply first aid. During recovery, Tim only thought of how he would enact his revenge on Bobby. After he recovered from the wound, he was stationed at headquarters and not with his old company. His wound continued to bother him and caused him to be the butt of several jokes. So when Alpha Company came into the headquarters for a short recovery period, Tim resolved on seeking vengeance.
His old company soldiers refused to help him because they had forged a bond with Bobby, and they pushed Tim toward forgiveness. Bobby met with Tim and apologized to him for his cowardice, explaining to Tim that he couldn’t make his legs move even while he heard Tim screaming for him. Tim does not forgive him and manages to secure Azar’s aid in his plan of psychological torture. They play various tricks on Jorgenson while he stands on guard duty at night. Tim eventually feels guilty about the terror that Bobby would be experiencing and attempts to end their pranks, but Azar refuses to stop. In the end, Bobby comes out and calls for Tim, and Azar kicks Tim in the head as he leaves the field. Tim and Bobby make peace after Bobby treats Tim’s head wound.
Night Life
Rat Kiley began to come under strain when the company’s night operations became more frequent while Tim was recovering. He began to hear voices and became obsessed with the idea that the bugs of Vietnam were out to get him. He confessed to Cross that he couldn’t stop seeking images of dead people, and his corpse. He shot himself in the foot and was extracted from the field.
The Lives of the Dead
On Tim’s fourth day in Vietnam, Alpha Company calls in an airstrike on a village along the South China Sea. Tim and the rest of the soldiers in his company comb through the village after the strike and find a single dead old man. All of the soldiers in the company shake hands with the corpse, but Tim refuses to do so. Kiowa comes to him later that night and commands him not to disrespect the dead like the rest of the soldiers. Tim tells him that the dead old man reminded him of his first girlfriend, Linda. They had been nine years old, but he was certain that they had loved one another. He had gone out on a dinner date with her and his parents. He liked the large red cap that she had worn. They had been awkward with one another throughout the night, but he felt that they had loved one another.
Linda continued to wear the cap in school even though some of the boys mad fun of her, and when one of them took the cap off her, Linda cried. Tims saw that she had a big bandaid on her head, and his mother told him that Linda was very sick. Tim remembers the day he found out about Linda’s death, he went home and lay down feeling a floating sensation. Tim asked his father to take him to the funeral, but the sight of Linda’s swollen corpse was horrifying to him. He later discovered that he could make Linda come to life in his dreams and stories. He remembers asking her what it felt like to be dead, and she explained it was like being inside a book that isn’t being read anymore. Tim imagines that Linda lives in a world inhabited by Kiowa, Ted Lavender, and a younger version of himself. Suddenly, Tim is forty-three years old, a writer, and yet Linda still comes to him in his stories.
Analysis
The narrator attempts to experience a sense of closure by revising the site of his friend’s death, however, he finds that he is unable to conjure the emotions that he had experienced in the past. The field appears unremarkable to him, and he decides to put the past behind him as he tells his daughter that everything between him and the Vietnamese farmer is finished. In the final story of the novel, Tim delves into the relationship between death, memory, and story telling. The final words of the novel reveal that the stories are a medium for his younger self to save his present self. The narrator emphatically believes that stories and talking can save an individual from suicide.
