13. The Things They Carried: Ambush~Anecdote

O'Brien includes this chapter as a small anecdote. This anecdote reveals more about Tim as a person. Through the use of this lit term, the reader is able to clarify the exact emotions that Tim experienced during this depressing moment in his life. The reader would not fully understand the complexity of emotion that Tim experienced without the use of this anecdote. The reader is able to see for himself that Tim did not simply kill a man. The situation itself is much more complicated. Although he has someone's blood on his hands, he did it because that's how he was trained. In life, everyone makes mistakes, but we have to learn to let go of the past.