Belief is one of those words that might mean something different to each person who is asked the question. The Oxford Dictionary of English provides the definition of belief as: “Trust, faith, or confidence (in someone or something)” (151). There are many beliefs that we see practiced by the characters in the book and still practiced today that have ties to a much older time, a time before science. At that time much of the knowledge was actually what we would today call cultural knowledge, based on perceived patterns in life and nature, including the unseen and unproven. Rituals and beliefs based on these patterns are what we now call superstition. O'Brien tells us, "The things they carried were determined to some extent by superstition" (O'Brien 12). Janet Goodall provides an updated overview of superstitious actions, “such actions are attempts to exercise human agency in situations where other avenues for influencing outcomes have already been taken or are unavailable” (Goodall 310). Some categories based on cultural knowledge (superstitious beliefs) and these patterns to be discussed are predestined, predestined but fixable, escape rituals, positive superstition, and folklore. In The Things They Carried it seems that most of these kids believe that they are facing the fate of death. The difference between predestined and predestined but resolvable in the article “Superstition and Human Action” is that “human action is capable of circumventing destiny” (Goodall 313). Henry Dobbins is an example of someone engaged in a fatal but solvable superstitious action in that he is trying to avoid the fate of death by wearing his girlfriend's stockings around his neck as a protective talisman. O'Brien tells us about Dobbins: “Dobbins felt the pull... at the center of the paper... Biological Sciences, Vol. 21, no. 7 (JULY 2010), pp. 1014-1020. JSTORE search completed. Network. April 8, 2014. Goodall, Janet. "Superstition and human action". Implicit Religion 13.3 (2010): 307-318. Academic research completed. Network. April 8, 2014.Motz, Marilyn. The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 111, No. 441, Folklore: What's in a Name? (Summer 1998), pp. 339-355. JSTORE search completed. Network. April 8, 2014O'Brien, Tim. The things they carried. 1990. New York: Mariner Books, 2009. Print.Pimple, Kenneth D. “The Meme-Ing Of Folklore.” Journal Of Folklore Research 33.3 (1996): 236-240. Academic research completed. Network. April 5, 2014.Stevenson, Angus. Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 19 August 2010. Print.Zipes, Jack. "The meaning of the fairy tale in the evolution of culture". Wonders and Tales 25.2 (2011): 221-243. Academic research completed. Network. April 5. 2014.