
With a total casualty count of over 58,000, the Vietnam War was one of the most violent conflicts in the history of our nation. In The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien,  physical aspects of war are over explained to hide the underlying emotional and psychological effects that aid in breaking down the main character. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was a severe mental issue at the end of the war, due to the atrocities experienced while overseas as well as the emotional toll the crisis took on Veterans both at war and when they were trying to re-integrate into society. 

In Dr. Jonathan Shay’s article on mental disorders caused by wartime experience, he provides examples in detail of post traumatic incidents as a result of the terrible situations in combat. Dr. Shay is a practicing psychiatrist who almost exclusively works with patients with severe mental disorders as a result of Vietnam. Many more Vietnam War veterans were exposed to these war horrors as compared to the similar PTSD symptoms in Civil War veterans. In this argument based on evidence from the book Shook over Hell by Eric Dean, Shay compares and contrasts the aftermath of veterans in these two wars. He uses examples specific to the effects during and after the war, and how the veterans were treated as associated with what they actually went through in the two wars. Explained later in Shay’s essay, many of these men that were fighting in Vietnam were part of a group drafted with “too-quick, unreal training” (154) which weakened our soldiers and left our troops with unpreparedness; a recipe for mental weakness. Then once the soldiers returned home they were met not with open arms, but with indelicacy despite the things they went through to fight for and defend United States citizens. This indelicacy was influenced by the media (as Shay argues) and how many news stations would only pick the most appropriate clips recorded in Vietnam to show the public. Of course, many people became unempathetic thinking that the war was not as bad as described by the actual soldiers.  It was this combination of post war horrors as well as struggling to get back into normal life back in the States that lead to much of these veterans’ ailments. The main difference between Vietnam and the Civil War in the article was the fact that the soldiers were so far away. Dr. Shay says that the majority of the soldiers who fought at home “demonstrate the truth about cause and effect: war can wreck those who take part, landing them in insane asylums” (153). Many Vietnam soldiers had these same effects, plus more. Not only did they have the effects of war against them, but also the lack of income and ill treatment by the public back home. The soldiers fighting overseas are far from work, far from loved ones, and fighting for land that wasn’t theirs. While Shay makes the argument that most of these veterans were basically “whining exaggerators”, there were still many that developed mental disorders, similar to what Lieutenant Cross most likely did develop. 

Although reintegration into the society was a huge issue for many veterans, war terrors are the more common cause of mental disorders in most wars. From the article “Requiem for Vietnam:Reflections and Countertransferences of a Psychoanalyst”, Dr. Jacob Lindy researches his patient's past by visiting Vietnam. Referring to one patient, in this situation the tunneling soldier named Rick, served two terms as a Marine. Knowing the wickedness within those holes, who could tell what those men saw on various occasions. As Lindy described it after visiting the Cu Chi Tunnel in Vietnam, he admired the bravery and courage it took to clear those holes (301). Rick was diagnosed with PTSD as a result of his role in his platoon.

His small wiry frame made him ideal to be lifted, upside down, into a suspected enemy tunnel, there to check out the presence of the enemy and deliver explosives when indicated. His treatment began when, while drinking, he had successfully insisted that his friend hold him outside a third story window by his ankles, upside down.

Using only one example of the various roles within the common platoon, one could assume that many of these traumatizing events have lasting effects on veterans like Lee Strunk in The Things They Carried, who filled the same role as Rick, the one to clear the tunnel (332). There are many other examples of Lindy’s patients who have suffered similar problems, where an activity at home triggers some sort of traumatic memory, some of which are nearly mirror war events to those from Lieutenant Cross’s troop (Lee Strunk being the most relevant). 

In The Things They Carried, the events described are an exact replica of how the Vietnam war was in the 60s and 70s. Culturally, it goes over much of what is happening at war and how the conditions were. Although the story is not necessarily fiction, it is believed to be an autobiography of Tim O’Brien’s life-- seeing as he is a Vietnam veteran himself. However this is supposed to be a fiction story, many call it “verisimilitude”, the blurring of reality and fiction. In this particular argument I made about how PTSD is not just caused by events and emotional problems overseas, I looked specifically at how disattached Cross and his companions were from the rest of civilization using Shay’s article on the causes of PTSD in Vietnam soldiers. Along with Shay’s Article, I researched certain experiences in war that led to mental problems at home, using the example of Rick and Lee Strunk from Dr. Lindy’s article on his patients. 

        Using this information gathered from Shay’s article on PTSD and Lindy’s article on visiting the country that was the basis to many of his patient’s mental problems, one could compare the causes and examples he uses with the emotions and mental states of the men in The Things They Carried, mostly the emotions felt by Lieutenant Cross. In Tim O’Brien’s story, Cross repeatedly tells the reader that he and his comrades are not like any normal American. They didn’t have exams, didn’t go to college; they were different than the normal person. Desensitized to death and suffering (exemplified by the whole “zapped while zipping” comments), these soldiers return home to a nation full of people with an attitude of crassness, as Shay explains it, that further separates the marines from the citizens. This is represented in O’Brien’s story by how Cross constantly worries about what Martha is doing, not being sensitive to him. The research I have done on Vietnam as well as veterans who experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after coming home from war has made me pay more attention to each instance in The Things They Carried where Lieutenant Cross was either emotional or talked about the death of his subordinate, Ted Lavender. On nearly every page of O’Brien’s book he writes “before Lavender died”, and this thought definitely stuck with Cross as he refers to time as being before or after Lavender was killed. This example could easily be deciphered as a cause of some PTSD that might’ve affected the Lieutenant after the war, very much like some of Lindy’s patients lost companions in Vietnam. His emotions are all over the place, the death of Lavender caused him to tear apart and practically disconnect from Martha, the girl who he absolutely obsessed over in a majority of this book/autobiography, this disconnection is something that is completely separate from normal societal emotions. Examples like this breaking off from an emotion like wanting Martha, as well as actual war horrors like losing a friend, combined with the forced reintegration into a society that doesn’t completely accept veterans made it very easy for Lieutenant Cross and Soldiers like him to develop mental issues after the war was over. 
