The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried was a story written by Tim O’Brien, describing the emotional and physical things the soldiers carried. The soldier that received the most attention in the story was First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. Cross was only twenty two years old and was very in love with a girl back in New Jersey, her name was Martha. As the war was going on and Cross’ group was traveling along he would keep getting caught up with all these thoughts of Martha. Those thoughts would leave him totally distracted and make him feel like he was back in New Jersey. However, he was not and some of his troops were killed in those few days. That was probably the wake up call for Cross that he needed to leave his thoughts of Martha behind, move forward and focus himself and his team.

I think in life we all get a little distracted maybe not the same way as Cross did, but something or someone distracts us. In those situations we can become very vulnerable to the world around us and that is not a good position to be in. Jimmy Cross was distracted and was very vulnerable to getting shot down by the enemy, we could get ourselves distracted and get tempted to do something that we will regret. In our relationship with God we have periods in time where we can get a little sidetracked, and at that point the devil is trying to tempt you to sin. Reading this story just made me think that I have to be more aware of things when I get caught up in thoughts, class work, or life. Lately, I have realized that thoughts and class work have been getting the best of me, and I have not spent the time to just focus and plan out what I need to get done.