Hey you, do you think courage is important?I think courage is a very important aspect in life. O’Brien uses courage as an occurring theme in the book “The things they carried“. In this chapter, O’Brien talks about a man who came back from the war who had Post Traumatic stress disorder, and in the end ended up killing himself because he could not handle the throbbing stress of the war. Post traumatic stress disorder is when some one from war or has had a really really bad experience keeps thinking about it and can not seem to shake it off of their mind.

Norman got back from the war and tried to fight it but he was too far deep into his own mind. He had no will to live and everything to him just did not seem to have any importance. I think the notes were a very important part because they showed the story and what he was going through. It showed the side of him that no one really ever saw and why he could not take the effects of the war once he was back in his home town.

In my opinion, it did not change the way I saw or interpreted the story. My appreciation stayed the same because either way I think that the invention was still good. Even though the whole story is not true, the parts that are truthful still show the most meaning to me and I think that is why my appreciation did not change. Courage is really hard to have in my opinion and I do not think that Norman had a lot of courage. If I was in Normans spot, I do not know what I would have done. War can have a really really bad after affect to people once they go back home and that is exactly what Norman had.

Another thing that I think effected Norman was the death of Kiowa. O’Brien says, “Norman could not talk about it and never would. The evening was smooth and warm. If it had been possible, which it wasn’t, he would have explained how his friend Kiowa slipped away that night beneath the dark swampy field. He was folded in with the war; he was part of the waste” (123). He thinks that he could have and should have saved his buddy in his own unit. But instead he left him for dead and saved himself. When he went back home to Iowa that is all he seemed to be able to thunk about. In the world today, the highest numbers of suicide is the cause of grief, guilt, or own fault. Norman  could not get over the fact that he let his buddy die. He tried telling himself that it was the stench, or that if he tried saving Kiowa too that they both would have been left their to die. Him thinking all these thoughts was the main reason Norman decided to take his life.

After everything that we learn from the story and in Norman Bowers notes, I think people should cone to appreciate what happened especially with what we had learned from the previous we had read. I think that it is important for people to be open with each other and always tell someone if something is wrong. Even if we do not think people know what we have been through, some one does and someone is hurting just as bad and that is what Norman did not understand.