In retrospect, chapter one demonstrates how Tim O'Brien and the other soldiers were affected by the Vietnam War, many soldiers had to deal with the brunt of the war, the loss of innocents and sexual desire for women. One of the key themes introduced in the first pages of the novel was the burdens that many soldiers encounter during war. The soldiers in the novel carried remarkably heavy physical and emotional burdens; these burdens almost always seem too much to bear. For example Jimmy Cross, the platoon leader, was responsible for the lives of all the soldiers in the subdivision, yet he was unable to keep his soldiers alive. Another theme introduced in the first chapter is the loss of the innocent. The Vietnam War taints and ends the innocence of those soldiers who participated in the war. Most soldiers in the Vietnam War were young, not even in their twenties. However, Tim O'Brien relentlessly points out that, although they are young, they are killers when commanded. Many soldiers had to immediately give up their innocence and become men during the war. Other themes that emerge in the first chapter are sexual stories for women. In addition to fighting the Viet Cong, the soldiers had to endure living without women around; which causes them a lot of anxiety. In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien's opening chapter describes a group of soldiers marching through the jungles of Vietnam. Subsequently, Tim O'Brien began to reveal the personal items that each soldier carries with him during the war. These soldiers carry surprisingly heavy physical and emotional burdens in the jungles of Vietnam. However, these emotional burdens are much heavier than anything else... middle of paper... they are killers." (O'Brien 1.37) These men kill on command; most soldiers simply accepted whatever he did during the war as a job. At the beginning of the first chapter Jimmy Cross was only twenty-four years old and he was the leader of his platoon. He was still an innocent person, all this when Ted Lavender was executed before his eyes. Jimmy Cross had to give up to his youth and begin to think like a soldier. When he burns the image of Marta he symbolically loses his innocence and begins to see the world from a different perspective it was the story "The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong", in which Mark Fossie's girlfriend came from America to Vietnam only to become intoxicated with Vietnam and become a killer. The Vietnam War materializes the change of people and makes them ruthless and brutal.