In The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, most of the stories share the same structure, though each is unique in its own way, in terms of content. The story "Speaking of Courage" is special, however, in that it ties two stories together: a post-war story that uses a lake in Iowa as a bullshit camp metaphor in a war story. This story is essential to the rest of the book as it addresses the three most prevalent themes in the book: love, truth and guilt. It does this by shedding light on how emotionally taxing war is for soldiers through the unique perspective of a soldier who later committed suicide. Throughout the book, O'Brien clearly mentions stories about love, or things soldiers carried to remind themselves of love; in “Speaking of Courage,” love is not mentioned at all, but it is incorporated and is responsible for Norman Bowker's death. Bowker's need to please his father and win back his love consumes him. This silent presence of love speaks to the way O'Brien presents love in all other stories. He points out that love can come in different forms and that it can affect people differently at different times in their lives. One of the many examples that shows that each of the soldiers carries love with them before, during, and after the war is the way O'Brien opens the book. It does so with the theme of love and the effect it has on Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. Before the war, the word love really meant every soldier's relationship with a family member or partner. During the war, however, the meaning of this word changed. He bears letters "signed Love, Martha, but Lieutenant Cross realized that Love was only a way of signing and did not mean what he sometimes pretended it meant (pp. 11-12)." Even though Martha doesn't intend the word to have any meaning, Cross uses it as encouragement to overcome difficulties