"The Things They Carried" by Tim Obrien is a grouping of stories about a platoon of drafted United States.  The stories focus on some of the personal items and the equipment given to these soldiers as they carry out their missions during the Vietnam War.  Many of these stories talk about love lost between the soldiers and their families and loved ones back home.  Others, however, talk about some of the weapons and heavy machinery some of these soldiers had to carry on missions and the death and suffering they had to go through while carrying on their missions.  But, many films and articles question the morality that the United States had involving themselves in the counterinsurgency fighting against the Viet Kong.  The main focus of media and hysterography in the United States that involves grunts and platoons on the front line of this war question the United States strategy that they used fighting counterinsurgency in the country. It is in my opinion as well as many of the filmmakers and writers mentioned in "Spies, Advisors and Grunts", that the United States took the wrong path in their attempt to fight counterinsurgency in Vietnam.  This tactic not only cost the lives of many soldiers fighting there but also cost many surviving soldiers their sense of morality and peace.

The United States mainly used large mechanized war machines to attack and kill as many of the enemy as possible as their strategy in fighting in this war.  It is argued that while using this strategy the United States failed to adapt to their strategy when their "Army Concept" way of fighting was not successful. This concept of fighting and its death and destruction is one of the main show points and topics in many of the Films about this war.  Films like "Apocalypse Now"   and "The Platoon" portray the heavy weight of pressure and strain put on the men deployed and fighting the United States strategy on the ground in Vietnam.  These soliders have a hard time with the morality of the things they are ordered to do while fighting for their objective.  Other films like "We Were Soldiers" and "Hamburger Hill" are based on real battles fought by the United States and Viet Kong in Vietnam jungles.  These films both portray large scale battles in which many U.S. soldiers face many enemies.  These films help show that while gthe United States may have taken ground from their enemies that had an extremely difficult time strategizing and fighting in the best way in order to preserve their men and resources.  Krepinevich in his writing argues that a better strategy that the U.S. should have taken, is to have a small group mentality and focus their firepower instead of the widespread destruction that was caused by the United States war machine through the use of Napalm and other weapons of mass destruction.  The ground soldier's main reliance on heavy weapons to fight their enemy has been highly questioned on its morality and efficiency due to the fact that it undid a lot of the leeway made using less violent and more subtle and political approaches such as the use of spies in the war.  

The mass death and destruction caused by the United States war machine heavy weighed on the shoulders of the men in the platoon in the book "The Things They Carried."  Along with the heavy equipment and weapons the men in the book and to carry, they also had to carry "Greif, terror, love, and longing."  These men had to resist their urges to run or freeze and hide in the face of the terror they faced during the war.  One of the jobs these men had to carry out was burning villages after they patrolled through them.  After the men walked through these villages and secured them of all enemies and supplies that could be used by the Viet Kong, the villages were burned to ensure they could not be used by the enemy.  This senseless destruction like Krepinevich wrote about surely caused unnecessary harm to innocent people living in the country at the time and brings up many questions about morality.  The soldiers did not only have to take lives in the war but on a regular or even daily basis risk their own.  One duty of soldiers who were fighting on the ground was to search the fox holes of the Viet Kong with a flashlight in order to find Intel or supplies before they were destroyed.  This was one of the most dangerous and life risking activates that a soldier had to take up.  In "the things They Carried", the soldiers in the platoon would draw straws to see which of them was the unlucky member that had to crawl into the darkness. This shows that the strategy in which the United States wanted to fight counterinsurgency took a toll on not only the enemy but also the innocents living in Vietnam, and the American soldiers on the ground.

  The main question I have about the connection between the article and films about Vietnam and "The Things They Carried" is that if the United States had taken a less destructive path or tactic in the war, would the men in the book have been saved from some of the physical pain they faced.  Or if the soldiers would have been able to save themselves from some of the emotional pain they had to suffer in losing their friends and killing people.  Or would a different strategy have caused the situation in the Far East to worsen beyond the point of no return during the Cold War period in United States history.  If not for the "Army Concept", which caused so much destruction on both sides of the war, would the country be in the place it is today and free and clear of all the fighting and counterinsurgency.  This is one question that will never be answered but a lesson the United States should take in future endeavors to try and avoid some of the death and destruction that took place in the Vietnam War. 

