I find that so far the book titled, “The Things they Carried” to be very intoxicating and interesting. I mean at first with reading the book I literally though, especially with how it was first starting off, it was going to talk about things that soldiers carried and possibly go on to talk about why they carried these things. I mean breaking down every item and telling the weight of each of them, it must have been exhausting. Or maybe that’s just how I took it in my head but either way I began to find myself fascinated in the rhetoric of the book itself. For one thing, and this is just because I’m a communication major, I found it confusing with the dialogue between some of the soldiers in the first chapter. Like I didn’t know who was talking to whom and when the other person was talking, the tropes of the conversations were just hard to follow at times. But I found that this chapter made me think about so much more than I ever thought of before with soldiers and it really made me think of my friends that I know are fighting now. Even exes and my current boyfriend on what he may carry when he will be compromised to going to war for this country. But one person I thought about in particular, which was random for me, was my friend from high school Jude. He’s such a random person in the sense that he’s unpredictable, not in a dangerous way but in a sort of confusing, non-emotional way. I’ve known him for a few years and he and I use to talk randomly about life and his life in particular. He went through a lot of difficult times at home with his mother and his family to the point that it turned him numb and cold. I mean frankly he never really had anything going for him and I tend to believe that a percentage of men who go out for the military are those who really had no other option and knew that they would be getting good bank from being in it. But Jude was, and still is my friend till today though I never see him anymore because he’s always spending a majority of his time in Afghanistan and I can’t even imagine what kind of thoughts are going through his head on a daily basis. As I’ve mentioned he has a sort of cold demeanor but I know it’s just his safely mechanism to coup with the bullshit of the world and I completely understand why. He use to tell me stories about some of the things his mother would say and do to him and I would always be speechless, feeling inclined to tell him to run away or emancipate himself; though I knew they weren’t really options. And that’s why I stayed silent you know, what could I say to make this person feel any better moment. Besides I love you and you’re my good friend never forget that sort of sayings. Over the past winter break of this year I and my other close friend Kim got to see him again for the first time in a long time. I knew her and I were always two people that he really cared about and always trusted with whatever came to his mind. And honestly I was happy to see that he wasn’t too much changed but at the same time I saw a difference in him, if that makes any sense. It’s like he’s content with the fucked up world and tragedies like seeing a child die right in front of your eyes; and I realized this because I asked him about his experience. What was it like, what it felt like, what did they do while being out there, things like that and he spoke about it extremely casually. Like the numbest person I have always known times ten, especially the moment when he told us that he’s shot a baby on duty. With reading the novels chapter it made me think what he had to carry with him to that war to be able to be so casual about something like that and to just feel no remorse. It makes me sad and worried about him. The three of us got to hang out and catch up on old times and old feelings, such as him having the biggest crush on me back in high school, and we had a really good time. We laughed, we joked around, we reminisce, we acted silly and I was happy to take him away from all of that tragedy and the numbing of having to be a part of something like that. What really surprised me though was that at the end of the night when Kim and I dropped him off, of which he would be going back the next day, he actually started to cry. Like really have tears coming from his eyes and I was so surprised because I have never seen this man cry about anything. But for some reason being with us made him…human. Like how crazy of a thought is that, that this man could shoot a baby with no problem but departing away from a piece of his prior life made him cry. I will never forget that. As me and Kim hopped out of that car to hold Jude. That moment makes me think about the things that he may carry. Maybe he’ll carry that time we all spend together with him.
I really hope he does.