Blog #3 Assignment Option A

In the story "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien, Kiowa, one of the soldiers in the platoon, hails from Oklahoma, he is a devout Baptist, who carries an illustrated New Testament from his father, as well as an old hunting hatchet. He also has to carry his grandmother's distrust of the white men.

Being in Vietnam, fighting in the war, disensitized Kiowa to any feelings but death. He's constantly describing the experience of seeing someone die, how he died, how he fell to the ground. He wishes he could care about fallen comrades like his Lieutenant, he wants to find some capacity for grief, but what he saw and what he did made it impossible.
The only other feeling he has, is a feeling of s simple pleasure of having his boots off, hearing sounds in the night, smelling his New Testament.
Feeling that, it makes him a flat character. We can't really see his reaction to other cirmcumstances, different situations. Just this particular setting.

Apart from the main character in the story, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, Kiowa stood out the most for me, because of his descriptions of someone dying, and his inability to feel anything else. It's a scary and lonely place to be.