
PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder, is one of the most prevalent disorders that occur in major wars and affects countless American war veterans. After the Vietnam war, many soldiers suffering from PTSD did not seek out help right away, at least not until it became more socially-accepted in the United States to ask for help and receive treatment. The soldiers returning home were certainly not given a hero’s welcome when they returned home making it even more difficult than it already was to return to society. Tim O’Brien, himself being a Vietnam war veteran, can use historical context and some alterations of personal experience to connect the reader to the text. O’Brien used the culture around him in Vietnam to bring these ideas together, even if he did not know it at the time. He could include historical context into this text because of his unique experiences with his fellow soldiers in Vietnam, something that greatly influences his ability to connect to the reader. O’Brien’s reasoning for crafting this text, at a glance was to describe the different items and possessions that soldiers carried while exploring Vietnam and what role they played in feelings of self-security and comfort. When looked at more in depth, the reader can understand that “the things they carried”, has more to it than material items, in some cases like Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, soldiers carry certain emotions and feelings that psychologically impact them while away from home. Able to experience some traumatic events and watch others struggle, O’Brien can put his experiences to text. Tim O’Brien intertwines his reality throughout the Vietnam war with fiction to create a text that forces the reader to question what they know about the experiences of Vietnam war soldiers during the war.

The world surrounding Tim O’Brien while being inspired to write this piece was one that most of us will never experience in our lives. The time during the war greatly affected the minds of the soldiers especially when they came home. The media made it appear that the American soldiers were the “bad guys”, and they depicted them as being ruthless savages that burned villages and killed innocent people, because of this they were stepped on when they tried to assimilate back into normal American society. Some soldiers felt that the only place they could feel in control and where they belonged was fighting in the war. During “The Things They Carried”, the actual items they carried did not impact them as much as the emotions and feelings they had to carry. O’Brien writes, “They all carried the emotional baggage of men who might die” (O’Brien 338). These feelings they felt about their fellow soldiers dying impacted them long after the war ended. When they were rejected back into society, their standard of living plummeted because of their treatment and experiences. PTSD has affected many war veterans from almost all wars but was only recognized in 1980 after the Vietnam war. That is why the Vietnam war is frequently brought up when talking about the disorder. Still in modern day America, veterans from the Vietnam war are still subject to PTSD and are affected by it every year. Even today, veterans continue to suffer from these psychological affects brought about by their traumatic experiences in the Vietnam war. The situations and experiences that soldiers in the Vietnam war went through, were carried by them in their minds for the rest of the war and years after whenever reminded of those horrific and terrifying events. Depending on the amount of war-time stress a soldier undertook, could very well determine whether they suffered from PTSD after the war and the magnitude of their psychological effects. PTSD could include things like nightmares and flashbacks triggered by sounds, images, or even thoughts. 

In this text by Tim O’Brien, the items that some of the soldiers carried grew upon them and they developed connections to them. Some items with these effects included photographs, comic books, good-luck charms, journals, etc. The items they carried impacted how they coped with some of the horrific things they witnessed while traveling through the country. The Vietcong tortured their minds to the point at which when the soldiers returned home, they suffered from psychological stress which impacted them for the rest of their lives. Just the memories of fighting and being attacked by the Vietcong controlled some of the effects of PTSD and how they handled it. The diverse things they carried with them during the war served as comfort items for when they returned home and were dealing with psychological effects. In historical context during the war, these items that meant so much to them each carried their own individual memory of a time in history. O’Brien was surrounded by this in his service in Vietnam and he understood why the soldiers did the things they did. But, when they returned home he noticed that the citizens of the United States did not understand what these men endured. 

Some psychologists have determined that some instances in war can be classified as “traumatic”, and those events are most likely what causes those lifelong psychological effects (Charles R. Figley 260). Some surveys were performed where soldiers would be asked to rate the level of stress on a single event and these results and the soldier’s psychological well-being would help determine the causes of psychological effects such as PTSD. The same survey as mentioned before concluded that war veterans of the Vietnam war were seen as highly more disturbed than those of any other war (Charles Figley 260). These findings have been replicated multiple times and that proves to most that PTSD was most prevalent in the Vietnam war. All kinds of factors including, the result of the war, their “welcome” home, and the Vietcong separated this war and its veterans from past and present wars. Relating to “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien writes, “He had loved Martha more than his men, and consequently Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war” (O’Brien 336). This sentence indirectly explains one reason someone in the Vietnam war might experience a psychological burden at some point after the war. The courageous men that served in the war came home to a country, unknowing that it would turn their backs to them. The man described in this quote had been carrying these emotions towards his love from home, Martha, and she did not love him back. He was a lieutenant, so when he would think about Martha before his men, he was putting his men at risk. In cases like this where someone is killed because of these emotions, now that person must live with that on their conscious. This feeling must be carried by this person for the rest of the war and the rest of their life, turning the things they carry into emotions that can affect their psychological effects later in life. Individuals who have experienced life-altering events that are extremely stressful or traumatic are more likely to have PTSD or variations of the disorder (Charles Figley 263). 

Tim O’Brien’s inspiration for writing “The Things They Carried”, comes directly from his personal experiences and knowledge he gained while serving in the war. He used historical context from his time in Vietnam as well as the accounts of fellow soldiers and their accounts about what they were surrounded by day after day. The meaning behind the “things” they carried throughout the war applies both physically and mentally. The “things” aren’t necessarily always important to the soldiers, some things were more than materialistic, some served as a safety blanket mentally for those experiencing and undergoing stressful and traumatic events. In some cases, these items were all the soldiers had, or at least they felt like that’s all they had. It was all they could call their own while in an unknown world. Seemingly endless research has been done on the psychological aspects of these soldiers. Some attributes to these soldier’s emotional unrest may have to do with their lack of control of the world around them in Vietnam, and in normal society, at some point they feel a lack of control once again. Veterans’ social and mental unrest is likely the result of a sense of helplessness in the war zones when their brothers were being murdered right in front of their eyes. The Vietcong proved to be ruthless and merciless to the American soldiers they captured. As well as torturing them, the Vietcong also destroyed their sense of control and their ability to work as a unit when attempting to fight a war some say they were never supposed to be in. PTSD was thought to have been a result of the Vietcong’s cruelty and humiliation of the American soldiers during the war. Behavioral problems arose after the war in those who experienced those traumatic and stressful events. Many found themselves becoming criminals and falling to drugs long after the war was over (Yager 1). Drugs were many times a result of psychological unrest for the veterans because it was the only thing that could halt their extreme anxiety. The American population that did not welcome the veterans of the Vietnam war pushed them into a world of crime and drugs because they felt helpless in a world where they could not become anything they felt mattered.

The weight carried by soldiers during Vietnam, both physically and mentally, shaped who that soldier was as a person after the war. The amount of stress experienced in combat instances destroyed who a soldier was on the inside. Going from a war filled country where they watched people including their brothers die right in front of their eyes, to a country where everyone ignored what had happened to them half way across the world takes a toll on the minds of those young men. They had no idea that going into this war would cause them so much distress and suffering in the long run. While fighting, the soldiers felt as though they were doing their part and fighting for their country, not expecting to come home to an unwelcome America. These looks of hatred toward them only increased the amount of distress that resulted from the years of fighting a traumatic war. The Vietnam war was the first major war broadcasted by the media to the general public and the American people didn’t know how to react to the atrocities they were witnessing. The media would do things such as broadcast American soldiers burning a village and tell the American citizens that they were killing innocent people, but what was behind the burning was to flush out the Vietcong, resulting in the protection of the Vietnamese citizens. Just about everything that the media skewed to look like their soldiers were being cruel to the Vietnamese, was far from the truth which was the fact that the soldiers were acting in the best interest of the Vietnamese. Tim O’Brien described the things that the average soldiers would carry, but when read between the lines, one could conclude that the actual things that soldiers carried affected how they reacted to stressful events during the war. The imagery O’Brien can present during this text moves the audience to ponder about the events that actually occurred and not the lies that were presented at the time by the media. O’Brien uses a technique that mixes reality and fiction, meaning that some of the events described in “The Things They Carried”, we’re not completely factual. The meanings behind the events were, but some of the people described were used to represent historical facts of the time and not his own experiences. Vietnam, in history will go down as one, if not the most traumatic war for the American military and its soldiers. The soldiers that resulted from the war were far from who they were before the war, to them and all their loved ones. Who they came out of the war as was depressing in the sense that these young men’s lives had been taken away from them.
