The book is filled with stories about the men of Alpha Company and their lives in Vietnam and afterwards back in the United States. O’Brien captures the reader with graphic descriptions of the war that make one feel as if they were in Vietnam. The characters are unique and the reader feels sadness and compassion for them by the end of the novel. One of the significant concepts in The Things They Carried is …showed first 75 words of 709 total…

…showed last 75 words of 709 total…these incidents behind them. The friendships and bonds that formed in the jungles of Vietnam between the members of Alpha Company help them to survive on a day to day basis. Not only while they were “in country”, but in dealing with their lives back in the United States. Without the bonds of friendship none of them men of Alpha Company would have survived mentally or physically the strains and trauma of the Vietnam War.