The Things They Carried

This story is one the narrator has never told anyone before—not even his wife. It makes him squirm. In June of 1968, one month after graduating from college, the narrator was drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. He was 21 years old. The war seemed wrong to him: “Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons” (38). He took a small stand against the war, although nothing radical. He receives the draft notice on June 17, 1968. His mother and father are eating lunch in the kitchen. He opens the letter and reads the first lines and feels “the blood go thick behind my eyes” (39). He feels he is too good to go to war and not a soldier by nature.

The narrator spends the summer of 1968 working at a meat-packing plant in his hometown in Minnesota: “The plant specialized in pork products, and for eight hours a day I stood on a quarter-mile assembly line—more properly, a disassembly line—removing blood clots from the necks of dead pigs” (40). He uses a heavy water gun and comes home after work smelling of pig. Even though he bathes and scrubs thoroughly, the smell doesn’t go away.

He borrows his father’s car and aimlessly drives, thinking over his options.