The Things They Carried - An AnalysisThe Vietnam War was the most technologically advanced war of its time. The fighting was even more horrific and terrifying during the Vietnam War. There was no front line or clear way to identify the enemy as civilians would attack soldiers as well as the North Vietnamese army. It was a guerrilla war of every man for himself. Thanks to advances in medicine, more soldiers have been able to recover from injuries caused by shrapnel grenades, land mines, concussion grenades and other weapons. A person could step on a mine and only suffer the amputation of a limb instead of dying. Tim O'Brien survives two gunshot wounds and an infection bordering on gangrene. In past wars, if gunshot wounds didn't kill anyone, infection almost certainly would. The soldiers in The Things They Carried were tasked with fighting two Vietnam Wars, an internal war and an external war. Externally, the men fought the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong. Internally, men struggled with maturity and adulthood. They were desperately trying to stay young despite a war forcing them to grow up. Each soldier carried various "weapons" with which to fight the wars. For example, Dave Jensen wore a rabbit's foot, while Jimmy Cross wore a Martha pebble found "where things came together but also fell apart." (O'Brien, 9 years old). Lee Strunk carried a slingshot. Henry Dobbins, however, carried two weapons in addition to the regulation weapons of the army. He wore the nursery rhyme “A tisket, a tasket, a green and yellow basket, I wrote a letter to my love and on the way I dropped it…” which he sang while sewing stripes on his uniform. He also wore a pair of his girlfriends' tights, which he wrapped around his neck for protection. "He loved putting his nose in the nylon and breathing in the scent of his girlfriend's body; he loved the memories it inspired in him; he sometimes slept with the stockings against his face, like a baby sleeps with a flannel blanket, safely and peacefully. (O’Brien, 129). These weapons allowed these men to avoid Bouncing Betties and gunfire, while allowing them to crawl through dark tunnels and watch their friends die every day. They were able to fight off the North Vietnamese, the Viet Cong, leeches, mosquitoes, ringworm, dysentery, gangrene, and wounds from land mines and guns, only to wake up the next morning and fight the same enemies day after day..