The Things They Carried is a historical non-fiction novel from Vietnam written by Tim O’Brien. The chapter of the book read in class deals mostly with the actual experiences O’Brien had in Vietnam, along with the experiences of his fellow soldiers. In the chapter, O’Brien deals quite a bit with what the soldiers carried. He touches on the experiences of one man and his love for a girl back home. He also touches on some cultural references regarding the world and the Vietnam War. He does so through talking about the soldiers. Background information on the Vietnam war, specifically America’s opinion of the war, combined with the text demonstrate that the war for the soldiers who fought in it was made worse by the views of the public back home. This is important because it explains much of O’Brien’s reasoning in the text.  

When writing The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien was out of the War and wrote the book by looking on his past experiences. As he lived through the Vietnam War, and the years leading up to it, O’Brien and his book The Things They Carried serves as an excellent source of information on the effect of the American public’s opinion of the Vietnam War on the War. 

Wars are greatly affected by the county’s opinion of it. If a country’s public supports the war that they are in, then there is more positive backing for it. This will give more motivation to the soldiers doing the actual fighting and can therefore result in an invigorated fighting corps. This is a huge upper hand in any battle. World War Two is a good example of this. The United States had great public support for the War and a massive effort was produced by a feeling of patriotism during the War. This led to the military being more upbeat and gave the soldiers more motivation to fight. On the other hand, this support of wars can change drastically in different contexts. One example is the Vietnam War. Unlike other wars, America’s involvement in this conflict was not supported by the public. The highest rate of opposition in the public reached nearly 70 percent. This was in 1969, around the time O’Brien became involved in the War. (Hamby 139).  

One thing that Tim O’Brien and his soldiers encountered was the draft. The draft, in order to get more people to fight in Vietnam did not give the soldiers a choice to decide whether or not they supported the War. They were either forced to go fight a war on foreign ground or to flee and evade the draft. O’Brien, in an interview with Larry McCaffery stated directly that he considered fleeing from the daft. He did not want to go fight in Vietnam. Also in this interview, he states that he supported the views of Gene McCarthy and did not support the war in his college days. O’Brien was affected by the opinion of America. The draft and the ideas of McCarthy had already created in him an opposition to the war, even before he began to fight. 

The effect of the opinion of America on O’Brien is found in the text. There is no patriotism in the Things They Carried. In the chapter read in The Carolina Reader, there is no “let’s go America!” or anything similar. All O’Brien talks about is the duties done by the soldiers and how they slowly and sadly carried the things they did. O’Brien talks about the death of Ted Lavender and goes into descriptions of the hardships that the soldiers had to go through. One of the duties done by the soldiers is clearing tunnels found in the Vietnam jungles. The soldiers drew straws to see who had to do the job. No one volunteered. This was not a motivated mission. The text reads, “It was what had brought them to war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment” (Harley, et al 339). The drawing straws is reflective of the soldiers and public’s feelings of the war in general. The bad opinion of the war leaked into the soldiers as they did their duty in Vietnam. 

 The opinion of America was shared by these soldiers O’Brien describes. They did not want to be there. Simple words in the text such as “He was just a kid at war” (Harley, et al 334) make the story of the excerpt all the more emotional. The main character, Lieutenant Cross was in love with a girl before he was sent overseas to war. The story touches on his experiences carrying his love for her while in battle. This boy was taken by the draft to fight in a war he did not – and the public did not – want to be in. This gives O’Brien’s story much more weight, and gives reason to his unexciting descriptions of their experiences. 

 O’Brien and his soldiers did not escape the draft and refuse to go to war almost purely out of possible embarrassment. In the aforementioned interview with Larry McCaffery, O’Brien mentions that he considered escaping the draft but did not in order to escape embarrassment. He states, “I sensed that the people I cared for in my life – friends, college acquaintances, professors – would have looked askance at my deserting” (McCaffery 133). It was not pride or patriotism that drove these men to Vietnam, but largely the fear of embarrassment in front of their own people. This gives all the more support to the soldiers in the text. 

In a practical sense, besides carrying love and memories of their families, the soldiers carried weapons and supplies and personal artifacts relating to their position and mission. In the excerpt, O’Brien names a multitude of things carried by these soldiers. To the everyday reader, this may not seem like something special. When the opinion of the soldiers and the public’s view is considered, these objects become all the more important. These objects that the men carried were all they had. It was all they had to cling to in the War. They had a rather small amount of hope and barely any motivation to hold to. In contrast, during World War Two, there was a great deal of motivation to fight. From 1940 to 1943, around seventy percent of the nation thought that every able-bodied man should go to fight for the country (Berinsky, et al). Compare that to extreme disapproval of the Vietnam War. These two distinct views on the wars have great impacts on the level of morale for the soldiers on the ground fighting them.  

The lack of public support behind the Vietnam War is what dictated Tim O’Brien’s tone in the book The Things They Carried. Not only did America not approve of the War, O’Brien himself was opposed to it before he was drafted into it. The draft was not something any of the soldiers written about wanted to be a part of. This background gives reasoning to the text. It is easy to understand why O’Brien and his men pulled straws for certain missions, and why there is no positivity in the tone of his writing. Also explained is the lack of patriotism in the fighting O’Brien describes. The public opinion of the Vietnam War made the War for the soldiers worse by creating negative feelings towards the war. These feelings influenced the O’Brien and the men with him in ways that led to a lack of patriotism and effort for the Vietnam War. 
