Three million men served in the Vietnam War. Of the soldiers who made it home, 271,000 were diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). According to The Things They Carried, soldiers who could not handle the stress of the war would blow off their own fingers and toes in order to be taken to the hospital, escaping the hell they are in. The experiences these men were involved in were so horrifying that the thoughts of battle stay with them for life. For example, in the novel, Lieutenant Cross struggled to keep his mindset sharp during the war despite the challenges he faced. The war changed these veterans like Cross for the worse, and has affected their lives greatly; the psychological nightmare of PTSD continues even 40 years after their return to the United States. 

The Vietnam War impacted soldiers involved because of the psychological damage they have personally felt from the PTSD from the war. Many normal soldiers who went off to war came home unable to function like before. PTSD has directly caused veterans to feel helplessness, worthlessness, dejection, anger, depression, insomnia, and a tendency to react to tense situations by using survival tactics. In fact, in “Healing My Own Wounds”, an article published in a 1996 issue of The California Zephyr states that, “since the end of the Vietnam War approximately 150,000 veterans have taken their own lives from mental instabilities” (Kelley). Soldiers in the war suffered through major situations. PTSD occurs after experiencing severe trauma or a life-threatening event. In The Things They Carried, the soldiers had to comprehend the possibility of dying any minute. Many of the deaths in the text were random and startling. Lieutenant Cross had the burden of feeling responsible for the death of Ted Lavender. O’Brien explains, “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Greif, terror, love, longing–these were the intangibles, but the intangibles had their specific gravity, they had tangible weight” (338). The Lieutenant was experiencing PTSD from a member of his platoon being killed in front of him. The repetitive flashbacks changed Cross’s focus and decision making. Soldiers saw their friends and partners losing limbs and dying left and right. 

War’s true face is not as most people see it, which makes it more difficult for soldiers to deal with their repercussions of the war once they return home. Norton Cru states the true face of war as, “terrible exhaustion, extraordinary fatigue. War is water up to your belly, and mud, and ordure, and unspeakable filth. War is dead moldy faces and rotting tatters falling away from rotting flesh and corpses which no longer resemble corpses, half afloat on the muddy, voracious earth. War is the never-ending monotony of pure misery, broken by intense and bitter dramas. That's what war is” (Cru). Coming home to a normal life for most is not an option. Lieutenant Cross had the expectation of coming home to the girl he spent hours daydreaming about. However, he realized that the war caused separation, and in the letters sent between the two he discovered no love was there. Veterans really struggle with the psychological problems from PTSD because they find it hard to connect with others who haven't been through the same things they have. Most civilians back at home do not understand the conditions and struggles the average soldier must endure daily. PTSD has caused many veterans to change – like Lieutenant Cross. For example, a Vietnam War veteran, Jesse, was interviewed by Make the Connection, and he explains how when he came home he went to college. He did not feel accepted for being in the military, and he had many problems that he could not get help with. Jesse coped with it by, “growing long hair and a mustache, and becoming one of “them” (Martin). Many veterans turned to drugs and alcohol in an attempt to cope with the pain. However, some were unable to deal with their PTSD and reluctantly committed suicide.

A main contributor to having PTSD after the war is the constant fear of the unknown. A casual walk to an army base could end up being a hundred-man fire fight. There is also a strong sense of fear in duties that are not combat related. In The Things They Carried, their duties involved blowing up elaborate tunnel complexes. O’Brien described the process as, “it was tunnel vision in the strictest sense, compression in all ways, even time, and how you had to wiggle in – ass and elbows – a swallowed-up feeling – and how you found yourself worrying about odd things: Will your flashlight go dead? Do rats carry rabies? If you screamed, how far would the sound carry? Would your buddies hear it? Would they have the courage to drag you out? In some respects, though not many, the waiting was worse than the tunnel itself. Imagination was a killer” (333). Envisioning catastrophes before they have happened is unbelievably stressful. Constantly thinking the worst is going to happen every day for years takes a toll on your brain. Having your brain wired to always expect the worst outcome may not transform back to its normal state when returning home. 

PTSD has affected more than just the individual, but their loved ones as well. This relates to the text, The Things They Carried, by the way Lieutenant Cross burns the photograph of Martha. He held onto the fantasy of Martha, whom he loved in the homeland, diverting his attention from the trauma of Vietnam. By the end of the war, the Lieutenant realizes due to the war he could never be with Martha. Martha was a key distraction for Lieutenant Cross in Vietnam, and his daydreams about her posed threat to his platoon. The Lieutenant changed their battle strategy resulting in the team being more fatigued, but safer. Being unable to think about Martha, the rest of the war was strenuous with few ways to cope. With veterans coping, many are drug and alcohol abusers. “Ted Lavender carried 6 or 7 ounces of premium dope, which for him was a necessity” (O’Brien 329). Drug and alcohol abuse can drive an individual away from people, including their family. There are very few actions one can take after being diagnosed with PTSD, and the veterans sometimes do not realize that they are sinking deeper into depression. Alienating one’s self is a result of this, and relationships are difficult to maintain. 

         It is evident that life after the war for veterans is just as complex as war itself. When these soldiers returned home with PTSD, it affected each aspect of their life. It caused them to struggle with internal mental illnesses which resulted in them not being able to recognize the men they were before the war. The PTSD they experienced also forced them to lose relationships with friends and family and obtain the inability to hold a job easily. These difficult burdens and drastic life changes added onto the depression the veterans had already been dealing with and made it nearly impossible to adjust to life after the war. Although the war was a traumatizing event, the aftermath of what it did to the American soldiers was something that would last for decades to come. 
