Exploration Three Nerone

         The story that has meant the most to me so far in The Things They Carried was at the beginning of the chapter “The Man I Killed” where he goes in depth about a man that he killed in the woods just a short ways away from his home, O’Brien describes this as “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole, his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman’s, his nose was undamaged, there was a slight tear at the lobe of one ear, his clean black hair was swept up-ward into a cowlick at the rear of the skull, his forehead was lightly freckled, his fingernails were clean, the skin at his left cheek was peeled back in three ragged strips, his right cheek was smooth and hairless, there was a butterfly on his chin, his neck was open to the spinal cord and the blood there was thick and shiny and it was this wound that had killed him” (O’Brien 118). This quote is powerful and shows how memorable killing somebody was to him, and how he noticed every single little aspect about the person who’s life he took. The author goes in depth about how the victim looked, but we only get straight details, he leaves out all of the emotion. We can’t tell if the author feels shameful for what he did, or if he regrets what he had done. This quote shows us exactly what war is like, you have to cut yourself off from your emotions and you have to do what you do and not think about it.

A character that stands out to me so far in the story is Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. Jimmy cross carries pictures of a girl that he had known in college named Martha and his thoughts are constantly dominated by her. His obsession with Martha appears to be unhealthy and as the story continues he seems to be thinking more and more about her.