1. What "intangibles" does O'Brien pay attention to and ‘weigh'? Which one(s) strike you as particularly burdensome for someone in war, and why?
2. Are there any intangibles O'Brien didn't name that might have been included in the long catalogues of the story "The Things They Carried"?
3. What instances of cowardice occur in these stories? Why do they occur? Do you think that they are cowardly?
4. Are there any actions in the stories that you would consider cowardly but which aren't identified as such? Why do you think them cowardly? Why doesn't O'Brien identify them as such?
5. By speaking of Ted Lavender's death as "a stone in his stomach," O'Brien implicitly equates Cross's guilt over Lavender's death with the loss of his love for Martha, who sent him a stone from the New Jersey shore. Why does O'Brien give the two losses equal weight, when our first instinct might be to value the loss of life over the loss of love? Drop loss from the question: what is more valuable, love or life?