In the book, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien and outside sources give the reader a real-life connection between the Vietnam war and something they can relate to.  A lot of times people feel comfort in numbers, so seeing the additional examples from the articles really helps them feel the experience.  A lot of times the media will portray something incorrectly therefore if people are educated with the wrong information it can make manners worse.  However these types of articles that are from victims themselves can really help a reader connect with them.  

The article gives a similar personal story that the text may be harder for the reader to understand, the sources shine light on the real experiences.  The sources can make some people realize what goes on in war and what people deal with afterward such as PTSD and many more problems associated with war.  Often you’ll see the media portraying PTSD as something treatable or even sometimes the media will act like it doesn’t exist.  PTSD doesn’t ever truly go away you just learn to live with it.  Which is awful for the ones who suffer from the condition but if you’re comfortable enough, a good way to cope is to read these stories.  When you are hearing a similar story to what you went through it helps with understanding and getting through common problems associated with PTSD.  Even if people aren’t suffering from PTSD these stories can still help you understand, at least somewhat if anything, what they went through.  Then for someone to go and say it doesn’t exist or that they can just get over must be even more mentally challenging.  They don’t even know what it’s like and they’re just assuming and judging based on their opinion.

The Vietnam was one of the longest most brutal wars, nearly one and a half million Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodian lives were lost.  Think about who killed them, Americans, and they have to deal with that the rest of their lives.  Some kills were less brutal than others, ranging from a bombing of thousands to a more personal hand to hand combat or stabbing.  Even shooting another human being is tragic and mentally challenging, both texts capture the impact it has on you mentally.  It’s hard to come to terms with at first but once you’re out there in the battlefield there isn’t much to do, it becomes subconscious for most and the others that are weak get picked off and straggle behind the rest.  The fact that you’re out there every day to kill people and getting paid to do so and to “protect your land” and that you’re supposed to be doing this for your country is mentally challenging.  I think that’s why a lot of writing like this is to help people feel like they aren’t alone and also give people that aren’t familiar with these scenarios some perspective about what goes on.  So the historical factor and truth behind some of these stories are quite chilling knowing that they’re real.  When people see war movies or things on the internet that aren’t true its hard to get those thoughts out of people’s minds.  Since so many people are brain washed with all these ideas the only way to counter act is to make more personal stories, articles, documentaries, whatever it takes to get people more informed.  With multiple sources, it makes it seem more prevalent and a bigger problem which is what some of these readers want, they want people to realize what goes on during war and that citizens shouldn’t be clueless and ill-informed about what their country does.  With a lot of evidence to back up what we do in war is a very sure fire way to convince anyone of anything and using that as a writhing strategy is flawless and unique.  Although once the media gets involved they twist up the stories and it can be rough but as long as the media doesn’t show a negative connotation with these affects then everyone will be better informed and will be able to understand others situations.

War is so challenging because you’re just sent out into the field and expected to kill random other humans because they are the “enemy” no matter what you tell yourself, its never right.  In the article, by Karl Marlantes, he talks about convincing yourself and how important that is to stay sane.  If you keep telling yourself its fine that you are killing all these people you’re going to end up believing it.  The only problems with that is, you have to deal with the consequences later because it catches back up to you.  You start thinking about all of the men you killed all over again, when you don’t want to, you still do. This is basically a version of PTSD, thinking about the tragic moments when you don’t want to, they just subconsciously pop into your head.  Before the war people thought that the war wasn’t that serious and that troops would just go off and have a good time in a foreign place.  But when they got there that wasn’t the case is filled with death and sorrow and that’s what people don’t understand.  Yes, the troops are fighting for the country but it isn’t solely and act of patriotism.  Some of them have to be there and are forced to fight.  This is even in the text but may be hard for the reader to understand exactly what the writer is trying to convey and the second source from the article really shines another spotlight on it.  By doing this is gives the reader more security on what is exactly going on with these stories and their validity.  The mental aspect of the war may be the biggest part, and the fact soldiers cope with it from day to day is extremely challenging.  Whether you’re at home or still on the battlefield, it’s difficult.  All the memories and flashbacks will happen regardless whether you want them to happen or not.  