The Things They Carried: In the Field Summary & Analysis

It's morning and the platoon, consisting of eighteen soldiers, is slowly moving through a deep shit field in the rain trying to find Kiowa.

Jimmy Cross yells at a young soldier to close up rank. The young soldier is separated from the group, standing in the center of the field reaching around under the muck. Jimmy Cross can't tell who it is. He thinks how Kiowa had been a great human being—perhaps the best. Kiowa's father taught Sunday school in Oklahoma City in Kiowa's hometown. Jimmy Cross thinks Kiowa's death was a crime.

When Jimmy Cross looks at the river he knows he made a mistake setting up his men there. Even though he was following orders, he could have found a way around them. They should have moved to higher ground or sent in false coordinates over the radio. He knew it was pointless to think of what he could have done now that Kiowa was dead, but he felt sick. He started to write a letter in his head to Kiowa's father to tell him what a great soldier his son had been.

The search was slow going. Azar, Norman Bowker, and Mitchell Sanders searched along the edge of the field. Azar said Kiowa would find his death ironic, and if he were there he would laugh. "Eating shit—it's your classic irony." Azar keeps talking about Kiowa's death, and how it's ironic and classic that the "redskin" dies in the cowboy movie. Bowker insists that he be quiet. The soldiers knew there was nothing they could do for Kiowa; they just had to find him and get him on a helicopter. When men died, the desire was to get things over with.

Mitchell Sanders stops in the middle of the field and fishes out a green rucksack. Inside they find a pair of moccasins and a copy of the New Testament. Sanders says Kiowa must be close. Bowker says they should tell Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, but Sanders refuses, claiming it's Cross' fault Kiowa is dead for stationing them there. Bowker says it wasn't Cross' fault. Sanders demands to know whose fault it is, and Bowker's responds that it was no-one's fault.

Jimmy Cross is fifty meters away from the three men. He's finished composing the letter to Kiowa's father in his mind, and now watches as his platoon searches for Kiowa. It reminds him of a golf course in his hometown in New Jersey when people search for a lost ball, and he wishes he was back there.

Jimmy Cross never wanted to be a leader. He had signed up for the Reserve Officer Training Corps in his sophomore year of college because his friends had signed up and it was worth class credit. After all of those months in Vietnam, he still doesn't know how to "keep his men out of a shit field."

Jimmy Cross recalls two old women from the nearby village who had come out to warn him that that this was evil ground, but he was following his orders and told his men to set up there. As the night went Mitchell Sanders crawled over and asked Cross what he was doing stationing them in a shit field. Cross knows he made a mistake, and it had been stupid, but it had cost Kiowa his life. He resolves to apologize to Kiowa's father in the letter.

Jimmy Cross again notices the young soldier and approaches him. The young soldier was trying not to cry, because he blamed himself for Kiowa's death. The night before as they had huddled under their ponchos in the rain, Kiowa had laughed off the conditions and said they should talk about good things, so they exchanged stories about home. Then, the young soldier remembered he'd shown Kiowa a picture of his girlfriend and he switched on his flashlight, which was a stupid thing to do. Kiowa had said she was cute. Then the field started to explode around them. The young soldier thought Kiowa's death was like murder, and his flashlight had caused it so he was responsible.

The young soldier remembered the screams when the mortar fire hit. One of them was Kiowa's. He tried to crawl towards the screaming, but when he reached Kiowa and tried to grab his boot, it wouldn't budge. He whispered Kiowa's name and let go. "He'd lost everything." Kiowa was dead; his weapon, flashlight, and the picture of his girlfriend were gone. He wondered if he could lose himself too.

The young soldier seems panicked and doesn't look up when Jimmy Cross gets to him. The young soldier keeps saying, "Right here…Got to be right here." Cross steps in and says Kiowa could be anywhere in the field. The young soldier says Kiowa is dead, and asks instead about Billie, his girlfriend in the picture. He had lost it, but he kept it wrapped in plastic so it should be OK. Cross insists the young soldier can get another picture from her, but the young soldier says Billie isn't even his girlfriend anymore and he has to find it. He keeps searching through the muck. Cross walks away, thinking about the letter to Kiowa's father.

Azar, Norman Bowker, and Mitchell Sanders are across the field still searching. It's almost noon when Bowker finds Kiowa. Bowker looks at Azar after touching the protruding boot and asks where the joke is, but Azar says there isn't one. They find Kiowa's other boot in the muck and start to pull hard, but there's little give. They call over Henry Dobbins and Rat Kiley, but even the five men couldn't pull Kiowa out. Azar moved to the bank with a pale face, gripping his stomach. The rest get out their tools and begin to dig around Kiowa. Everyone else comes over to watch except for Jimmy Cross and the young soldier.

They finally pull Kiowa out. Part of his shoulder is gone and his chest, arms, and face were cut from shrapnel. Dobbins said it could be worse. Jensen asks him how, but Dobbins doesn't answer. They all carry the body, trying not to look at it, over to the dike where they used towels to clean off some of the muck. Rat Kiley goes through Kiowa's pockets and puts his things in a plastic bag, then tapes it to Kiowa's wrist. Then he radios the chopper to come.

The men move away from the body. Some smoke, some open up cans of food, others stand in the rain. They are all relieved to be done with the search, now they can look forward to being somewhere else. They all feel bad for Kiowa, but feel a secret happiness that they were still alive.

Azar sits next to Bowker and says he doesn't mean anything bad by the jokes he tells. Azar feels like Kiowa was listening to him. He admits to feeling guilty, that if perhaps he hadn't made any jokes then Kiowa wouldn't have died. Azar feels like it's all his fault. Bowker says it was no one person's fault: it was everybody's fault.

Jimmy Cross is near the center of the field almost completely covered in the muck. He keeps thinking about his letter to Kiowa's father, except he's crafted a new impersonal version as an officer sending his condolences. He didn't apologize in the letter because it was a freak accident and it was a war, and there was no point in apologizing when it wouldn't change the fact that Kiowa was dead.

Jimmy Cross knew that "when a man died, there had to be blame." Blame could be put on the war, the people who started the war, Kiowa for going to the war, the rain, the river, the field, the mud, the climate, the enemy, the mortar rounds, the people who didn't read the newspaper or switched the channel on TV when they heard about politics, the nations involved, God, ammunition manufacturers, Karl Marx, fate, an old man "in Omaha who forgot to vote." But the causes in the field were immediate, and a bad call or stupid mistake had eternal consequences.

Jimmy Cross keeps floating in the water of the river for a long time. From the east there was a chopper arriving, but he can't hear it. He lets himself slip away, back home to New Jersey where he's on the golf course teeing up at the first hole. He thinks maybe after the war ends he will write to Kiowa's father or maybe he won't. Maybe he will take a few practice swings and then hit the ball and carry his clubs with him to the next hole.