First Edition/First Printing. This copy has been SIGNED by Tim O'Brien on the title page. On the surface "The Things They Carried" is a sequence of award-winning stories about a platoon of young foot soldiers caught up in the madness of the Vietnam War. At the same time, it has the cumulative power and unity of a novel, with recurring characters and interwoven strands of plot and theme. Each chapter flows into the next. The stories echo each other. And on a third level, this amazing book is bound together by Tim O'Brien's own voice and character - a twenty-three-year-old foot soldier, a forty-three-year-old writer re-creating that experience. Winner of France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger Prize.