The emotional stress that most soldiers carry with them during times of war is due to their inexperience and age. Most of the men who fought in the Vietnam War were between the ages of eighteen and twenty. Among these men were children, spouses, friends, boyfriends, and students, who could not comprehend the thought of war, murder, or coping with the unexpected death of their friends. From the beginning of the story, O'Brien, the author of "The Things They Carried," uses specific details and illustrations to show readers what the experience was like for men during the Vietnam War. Among the many things men carry with them were guilt, fear, pain, and stress. Throughout the story O'Brien emphasizes the terrible events that these men bring with them by incorporating the use of multiple themes such as: emotional and physical burdens, fear, psychological well-being and the use of motifs and symbols such as death in management of difficult situations. situations.Tim O'Brien, who is the author and narrator, describes the “things” that all the men in the platoon endure and carry. In the title The Things They Carried, the word "things" symbolizes what each man carried with him during the war both literally and figuratively. Although many soldiers carry physical objects, they all also carry emotional objects such as fear, terror, love, death, and desire. Throughout the story, each character's physical burden emphasizes their emotional burden. The many different “things” that each person carried with them also depended on many other factors, including personal needs, desires, and emotional well-being. O'Brien illustrates the physical things that each man carried with him by describing and detailing each object to create a men... means of paper... that tells. In most cases O'Brien presents himself as representing the general statements he makes about the war. Reading The Things They Carried, O'Brien is truly our guide through the inexplicable trepidation of war and the prime example of how grave situations can turn an intelligent, sensible man into a soldier who acts irrationally without any reasonable explanation. Occasionally, O'Brien goes dark and lets another character or third person tell the story. This technique provides a human aspect to the themes of the stories and gives us the opportunity to understand the events that men experience during the war from different perspectives. O'Brien constructs a distinct plot through his writing. Reading The Things They Carried is often akin to spending extended time with an old war veteran, letting his memories slowly come back to him..