Questions like the prompt for this blog post always kind of stump me. This is mostly because I can never decide what I would choose if I were in a position like this. I always end up with a huge list and several more things in my mind that I want to have with me, but considering the limited amount of space the soldiers had for their personal belongings, I narrowed it down to a few things.
Besides all the necessary items for combat such as food, clothing, water, and weapons, I think the most important thing for me to have would be pictures of my friends and family. For me, it would be very important to have some kind of tangible memory to look at when times were rough, and pictures would help me escape to happier times. I would also bring a journal in which to chronicle my experiences and record my thoughts and feelings, which would serve as an outlet for emotions throughout the war. I also love to read, so I would definitely try to have some kind of book on me, preferably a nice long one to help me pass the time. A book or story always transports me to another place, and with that I could inhabit the universe of the story and escape the real world of the war, if only for a few minutes each day.
On a more intangible note, I think that I would be weighed down with thoughts about my loved ones back home, sort of like Jimmy Cross is consumed with thoughts about Martha. War is unpredictable, violent, and terrifying, and for me the fear of death would only be enhanced by the thought of not seeing my friends or family again. This would probably be the biggest weight I would carry, and as O’Brien says, “intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight.” I think that a lot of times it is the intangible things we carry with us, the emotional baggage that we live with every day that weighs us down more than anything, and as a soldier in Vietnam, I feel that I would certainly be stuggling under all those things I’d be carrying, both literal and emotional.
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