"Since it burst onto the literary scene over twenty-five years ago, The Things They Carried has not stopped changing minds and lives, challenging readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing. It is an unparalleled Vietnam testament and a major literary achievement. It depicts the men of Alpha Company, who carried love letters, mine detectors, Bibles, and each other. And if they made it home, they carried images of a nightmarish war that haunts our history and echoes into our present." --

The men of Alpha Company battle the enemy (or maybe more the idea of the enemy), and occasionally each other. In their relationships we see their isolation and loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the lives they left back home. Yet they find sympathy and kindness for strangers (the old man who leads them unscathed through the mine field, the girl who grieves while she dances), and love for each other, because in Vietnam they are the only family they have.