
The Vietnam War was one that many Americans wish they could just forget ever happened. The casualties of the red, white, and blue’s young men were far too great and the purpose was much too small. This war left America forever changed in both the eyes of its citizens and the eyes of the world, and the excerpt from Tim O’Brien’s novel “The Things We Carried” does an excellent job of showing just how taxing this war was on its participants. The amount of stress these young men were put under, and the amount of irreversible damage that had afflicted them quite intense. Dealing with such extreme high levels of stress led to many a mental breakdown or shutdown between these men. The coping mechanisms varied from person to person, but in the end, they all carried something along with them whether it was their emotional baggage or something tangible that may have kept their mind off of the atrocities they were witnessing all too often. The Vietnam War was one that had many complications, scandals, and deaths, but one thing that was without a doubt true of the war was that most would never be the same again. 

Fighting a war is not easy. One’s mental fortitude is put to the test and those involved are pushed to their absolute limits both physically and mentally. There are many ways that some attempted to get a handle on the stress filled environment that was known as Vietnam. Some men would attempt to remain sane by carrying certain memories with them like thoughts of family, loved ones, or promises that they fully intended to keep but were not entirely sure if they would. Others carried tangible objects along with them to give them some source of luck or to help remind them why they have to return home or who to return home to, but for most that insane amount of emotional trauma can only be evaded for so long and soon enough the pressure will get to most and they will crumble. 

In “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, many of the soldiers were “humping,” or carrying around, numerous different objects and things such as a girlfriend’s underwear, love letters, or even a lucky rabbit’s foot. These objects were just a few ways these young soldiers attempted to deal with the extreme pain their psyches were dealt nearly every single day out in Vietnam. Unfortunately though, most soldiers upon returning home from the war found it quite difficult to work their back into their old lives they had left so long ago. According to the Harvard Gazette’s 2006 article, just about 30% of army veterans came back home with symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Web.stanford.edu describes PTSD as “a development of characteristic symptoms following a psychological event. ‘It begins with an event in which the individual with his or her own death or the destruction of a body part, to such humiliation that their personal identity may be lost.” Symptoms include feelings of helplessness, depression, anxiety, insomnia, reacting to tense situations by using survival tactics, guilt, and irritability to name a few. 

The war was not short of mental beat downs that may have caused these men to become unstable and experience the nasty symptoms this disease entailed. When these young men were sent overseas to go fight in this war, they all knew they had as would be able to come back home in 12 months due to a rotation schedule worked out by the US military. These scheduled DEROS (date of expected return from overseas) let the soldiers know just when they would get to set foot on US soil again and the closer these dates got, the less enthusiastic the men would be towards engaging in combat and making any kinds of risks. Going to fight in a war may have seemed exciting at first to some but after most had their first combat encounter that naïve excitement quickly faded into fear. With a DEROS in sight, soldiers would typically try to remove themselves from any combat situations or simply try to play it as safely as they possibly could to ensure their chances of making it home alive were as high as possible. Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel may have actually had negative effects on the men and very possibly could have been much harder for them. Not all of these men used the vast assortment of items or ideas to help calm their nerves and keep their sanity so these DEROS were all many had. 

Fighting in Vietnam was so stressful that most men had to find another release from this teenage wasteland many of them turned to drugs and alcohol to help keep their psyches as intact as possible. According to web.stanford.edu, the men turned to marijuana at first to ease the pain, but it did not take much time for the American public to learn that their sons whom had been sent overseas had now transformed into these “drug addicts.” This was met with much distaste from those residing in the states. This bad press led the United States  to begin trying to suppress drug use more, especially in the case of public enemy number one, marijuana. With one drug came a next. Just as many say Marijuana is a gateway drug and without much hesitation many a soldier quickly dropped the joints and made the transition over to a more extreme drug, heroine, to get their fix and keep their sanity. Weed and alcohol tend to slow down time, while shooting up some good ole heroin would have an exact opposite to that and instead would make time go by faster. This accelerant seemed perfect for these men as all they wanted to do was reach that next DEROS. The amount of drug and alcohol abuse that the media relayed back to those back home had some pretty lasting effects on how Americans perceived soldiers and definitely effected these veterans upon their return home from the southeastern Asian country. Many of these men were still unable to legally purchase alcohol when they returned and drugs simply were not as plentiful in the states as they were over in Vietnam. There were multiple instances when store owners would flat out deny a job application from a Vietnam War veteran due only to the fact that they could have had a drug addiction. Studies show that those aged from 19 years old to 23 years of age when they returned struggled the most with readjusting to everyday life. The drug habits and reliance on alcohol coupled with PTSD ruined many relationships with loved ones further elongating their transition time. 

The way previous wars had been exhibited by the media also did not help these young men being sent off to fight a strange war in a strange country. In past wars, combat was held in high regard. Men that fought and came home were hailed as heroes and always seemed to get the girl. Propaganda always showed smiling faces and triumphant Americans. When these men traveled to Vietnam they were caught off guard. Combat was not nearly as exciting as they had led to be believed and it was not nearly as clean cut either. Many young men watched their closest friends die right next to them when normal kids their age would be more worried about an upcoming test or talking to a pretty girl. These experiences were so very traumatic for these fresh-faced soldiers and truly corrupted them. Furthermore, the hero’s welcome they had all come to expect, was instead a barrage of insults, boos, and denied job applications. Due to shady war tactics by the Vietnamese, many squadrons had ended up killing women, children, and civilian men causing the US public to call our veterans brutal names such as “baby killers.” They did not return as heroes, but rather as villains. Many would look at our veterans and blame them for the atrocities committed even if they had nothing to do with it. These young men were ripped away from their lives and when they came back they simply felt as if they no longer belonged and had no real purpose. After fighting for so long to protect your country, sitting in cubicle all day simply did not feel near as important. Their personal identities had been stripped from them and many never truly reclaimed it. Society rejected them, the government ignored them, and no one truly understood them. These men were more alone than ever. Veterans felt as if they could relate to no one and really could not share their war stories with anyone other than those that fought alongside them. They often felt very alone and many were even pushed to suicide due to crippling cases of PTSD. 

This war actually turned out to be a disaster for us American people. With already shady reasons for going in to this war and with the public learning of many conspiracies towards it, nothing about traveling to Vietnam seemed right. Fighting her led to people to distrust our government more due to our falsifying what had actually happened. We had claimed that we were attacked first and were simply retaliating, but in reality, the news outlets were lying to the public to garner national support. Instead, this led to national distrust and disapproval of both the war and those fighting in it. United States patriotism also took an immense hit with us losing a war. Going into this we believed it should be quick and simply because after all we were only fighting a “fourth-rate power” according to Henry Kissinger, the Secretary of State. Losing this war caused many to feel even more ashamed and scared. We had lost what many believed to be a surefire, blowout victory and communism had once more spread to another country. The domino theory was in full effect and the Red Scare was spreading through America like a wild fire. The media had also projected those who had partaken in this war as psycho, drug-reliant, merciless killers and many treated them as such despite it simply being a case of good soldiers in a bad war. To make the situation worse, veterans were not given full respect for what they had done and sacrificed until 1982 when the Vietnam Veterans memorial was dedicated to those young men who had fought overseas. 

Overall, this war destroyed lives, hurt economies, afflicted nationalism, and forever blemished the American soldier in the eyes of the public. Both the American and Vietnamese alike were deeply affected by this unnecessary war and suffered lasting effects that still affect them to this very day. War was now portrayed more accurately and no longer seen as quite the act of heroism anymore and instead was seen as much, much more gruesome, through both popular media outlets and literature sources alike. Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”, showed how America’s sons had been forced to rely on fragile ideas and items to keep them sane. These men’s most pressing times before this was studying for a test or trying to get the girl, but these innocent, young men had instead been yanked away from their lives and had been returned as hardened, cynical, and quite frequently drug addicts and alcoholics just looking for answers at the bottom of a bottle or through a high. Our soldier’s image would never recover from the beating it took from the American media, and our trust in the government had taken a huge hit. This war had forever changed the United States of America’s history and had hurt them in more ways than one. The United States of America forced their way into this unnecessary war and expected to take it with a grain of salt, but there is no way they ever saw something as drastic as this coming their way. The lasting effects this war left on the country were brutal and had left a scar that was not going to heal cleanly.