Post-traumatic stress disorder is more common in war veterans than most people realize. This disorder causes veterans to act out irrationally and doesn’t allow them to be there normal self. PTSD in war veterans has highly increased in the last few years and has been more heard of. Soldiers are not given the best care when diagnosed with PTSD and often feel as if this disease is  not taken as seriously by society as it needs to be. By looking at the way society views soldiers in terms of the accounts described in ‘’The Things They Carried”, we can see that society puts soldiers on a pedestal when they leave for war. This is important because their humanities are overlooked and the soldiers that are returning from war feel as if they are misunderstood which results to government policies that mistreat war veterans.

In “The Things They Carried” the soldiers carried things they considered to be a necessity to them like photographs, candy, cigarettes, guns and bibles. It was important for the soldiers to carry these items with them because it gave them a way to cope with situations and served as a reminded of their loved ones that were waiting on them to return from the war. One thing that stood out was when one of the soldier carried marijuana, which he considered to be his necessity. Understanding that soldiers carried drugs with them to war is important because many soldiers didn’t know how to cope with the environment that they were in, so they thought that  the only way to make the to cope was by turning to drugs. Most soldiers that fought in the Vietnam War were typically men and men tend to have a hard time talking about their feelings because they’re supposed to be tough, this is another reason why soldiers turned to drugs. These      soldiers feel that by taking the drugs it will make the pain of missing their family go away and easier to forget about all of the gruesome things that they are seeing at war. Drug use with soldiers is important because turning to drugs will result in drug abuse and addiction problems that they will have to face and overcome when they arrive back home. Society seems to put soldiers on a pedestal when they leave for war, but when they return broken, society doesn’t seem to support the soldiers or honor them as much. This is unfair to the veterans because they risk their lives when they go off to war, they can’t control how PTSD will affect them. Society shouldn’t treat soldiers that are struggling with this illness any less of heroes when they return from war. 

War veterans seem to keep their feelings bottled up, feel depressed, angry and can even have flashbacks of things that happened to them when they were at war. The flashbacks can be very vivid and horrifying, this too is another reason so many war veterans turn to drugs and alcohol. As a result many veterans will make bad decisions and get themselves into trouble such as DUI, murder and assault. In the VanGuard video, David Poe did a study that proved that 1 in 5 prisoners were in fact war veterans and they were traumatized by the war and that was the reason they lashed out with violence(Poe). In “The Things They Carried” one of the men acted out with violence many times, this was in fact one of the ways that PTSD was affecting him. I feel like a lot of people think that soldiers are just trying to use PTSD as an excuse to get away with violence, but the most common symptom of PTSD is flashbacks.  Soldiers are trained to kill and to be violent before they go off to war, so when they return and are suffering from PTSD they aren’t aware of their surroundings or what they are doing and can sometimes think that they are just doing their jobs and protecting themselves. It’s not right to criminalize veterans who are sick with PTSD because they went and fought for our freedom and shouldn’t be repaid by going to jail because they were incapable of coping in a health way on their own. PTSD should be recognized more in returning war veterans and people should be more open and willing to help sick veterans, instead of acting like it does not exist and isn’t a huge problem that thousands of veterans are struggling with every day. 

When veterans have flashbacks to war they tend to act out irrationally or violently because the flashbacks are so vivid and they aren’t in the right state of mind to realize what they are doing. If veterans act out too irrationally or if the situation is bad enough, veterans can be dishonorably discharged from the military. This is one of the worst things that can happen to a war veteran because it’s taking away their job title and pride. Soldiers have to go off to war and fight for their lives to return back to their homes and families, if they get discharged it’s like they never went and fought in the war. There are government policies that state that if a veteran is dishonorably discharged from the military then they don’t receive health care benefits anymore.(Martin, 2) A study conducted by Public Citizen found that out of the 7,851,118 soldiers that fought in the Vietnam war 681,808 didn’t receive any health coverage when they returned from war.(Carrasquillo,1) Many of these soldiers could have been suffering from PTSD and couldn’t get any help to get better. Most soldiers don’t have the money to go to the doctor because they don’t have jobs when they return from the war, so they just have to suffer with PTSD.  In an online interview by Rachel Martin she talked to a veteran, Reed Holway, and he explained how hard it is for him to get a job after receiving a dis-honorable discharge “I can't ever do anything with my life. I can never get a job with benefits because every time I go to get a job and they know that I have a bad-conduct discharge - you know, I can't get anything because the BCD.” (Reed Holway, 1) The government is doing the veterans wrong, they are going off to war for our country and the results of the things that they had to deal with while they were at war is the reason why they are suffering from PTSD. Their lives are completely changed and there is no way for them to change their life around after being discharged from the military because it follows them around everywhere. Veterans have a hard enough time trying to find a job after being in the military because they don’t have any past working experiences or skills to bring to the table. A company isn’t going to want to hire someone who doesn’t have skills or could possibly be struggling with PTSD, the government is putting these suffering war veterans in an impossible place. 

In conclusion, veterans go through many challenges every day that are direct results  from going off to war. These soldiers may not have been so eager to go and fight for our country if they would have known that they would be treated so unfairly and that their life would be turned upside down when they returned home. Veterans should not have to face the challenges of PTSD on their own, lose their health care benefits, or suffer in prison because of how PTSD affected them. Society shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the problems that PTSD has caused to so many people and their families. Our society need to stand up for veterans suffering from PTSD and fight for veterans like they did when they selflessly went to fight for our freedom in the war. 
