“They carried USO stationery and pencils and pens. … Sterno, safety pins … signal flares, spools of wire, razor blades, chewing tobacco … grease pencils … Psy Ops leaflets … They shared the weight of memory. They took up what others could no longer bear. Often, they carried each other, the wounded or weak. They carried infections. … They carried … Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts … They carried diseases … They carried their own lives … like freight trains; they carried it on their backs and shoulders–and for all the ambiguities … all the mysteries and unknowns, there was at least the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry.”

— Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried