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“They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.” ― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried
The pictures they kept of home varied. Some carried pictures of their wives, girlfriends, moms and dads, their friends. Some carried pictures but never looked at them, but they carried all these people in one way or another. They had to carry them or they would forget. They would be swept away in war.
Poke carried his family in his heart, a safe place, one that the war couldn’t touch. He only looked there at his neediest hours. If he looked too long he might forget his mission and lose himself in the dusty confines of his Humvee. He might lose himself in Iraq and this war. So he kept them hidden.
Walt carried his family on a small picture taken at Christmas, before he was deployed. His family, dressed in the greens and reds of their horrible Christmas sweaters, was a barrier against the things he’d seen, the things he’d done, and the things he’d yet to see and do. When he looked at them he remembered that he was human and not just a Marine. He remembered that he was more than a killing machine.
Brad didn’t miss anything from home, but he carried it in himself nonetheless. He carried racing on his bike down the freeways towards Oceanside and Camp Pendleton. He carried that freedom, that invincibility. On the freeway he didn’t have to worry about being shot at, about someone in his Humvee being shot at, or at shooting at others. He didn’t have to worry about shooting the wrong person. He didn’t have to worry about death. The possibility was there of course, lots of people die in motorcycle accidents. But it never worried him on the freeway. On the freeway he was liberated. Here in Iraq, in combat, he was trapped. Death was all around him. He carried the freedom of his motorcycle flying down the California coast and pulled it out to escape the cycle of death on the roads in Iraq.
Ray carried songs from home to fight off the war. Songs about war, songs about love, silly songs, and country songs. But Brad wouldn’t let him sing the country songs, and that was alright with Ray, usually. As long as Brad let him sing something so he wouldn’t go completely crazy. You could go crazy, driving a Humvee across Iraq. Iraq. From his point of view, Iraq was nothing but miles of dirt roads and bumps and tiny little hamlets and goats. He needed to sing to break the monotony of the war, because secretly, sometimes his Ripped Fuel induced bullshit was too much even for him. He sang because it let off steam and because Brad and Trombley and Walt and the reporter would sing along too, if they knew the words. It made him feel like they were less of a killing unit and more like a family. Even if his family was pretty fucked up, Ray was glad to have them on the long road trip across the Iraqi desert.