The Vietnam War was arguably one of the United States’ most controversial wars. The United States deemed that it was necessary to intervene in Vietnam’s civil war over communism, which resulted in over twenty years of war and death. In past wars, our country evoked a strong sense of nationalism, coming together as a whole to support our troops who were fighting. The Vietnam War, however, had the biggest lack of support that our government had ever seen. In addition to the lack of support from the nation, the Vietnam War was also given a lack of support by soldiers that were drafted and forced to fight by the government. In his novel, The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien displays his lack of support for the war that he was drafted into. O’Brien uses description of the items that men in his platoon carried to display the heavy burdens that the war had, not only on the nation, but on the soldiers who fought in the war as well. He describes the items that the soldiers carried in three main categories: emotional items, survival items, and items of destruction. In his novel, O’Brien uses the literary device of contrast between the items that the soldiers carried to portray the caustic and devastating effects that the Vietnam War had on the American soldiers who fought in it. 

In his novel, O’Brien first describes the emotional items that the soldiers in the platoon carried. These items did not physically weigh the soldiers down on their journey, but instead were mental and emotional burdens. Jimmy Cross, the novel’s protagonist, carried a series of letters from a girl named Martha who was back in the states. Cross’s love obsession with Martha develops throughout the novel and he suffers from not being able to be with her, or find out if she feels the same way about him. Cross also carried with him two pictures of Martha, and his sexual desires for her become apparent in the description of the pictures. Cross continues to fantasize over Martha and seems to have a lack of mental presence in the war that he and his platoon were fighting. The items that Cross carried were not physically weighing his body down as they traveled, but instead emotionally weighing on his mind. The GI movement was an anti-war movement that spread across the United States and to soldiers in Vietnam. This movement played a large role in soldier’s morale, as many of them were silently joining the movement and hoping to end the war (Seidman). Emotional burdens that the soldiers carried, like those that Jimmy Cross carried contributed to the GI movement because they contributed to soldiers’ already existing lack of morale, which made their anti-war views even stronger. In the description of Jimmy Cross’s emotional items, O’Brien contrasts their physical weight with their mental weight to show that soldiers who fought in the war suffered mentally and therefore had such a lack of morale.

Next in his novel, O’Brien describes items that the soldiers carried for survival. These items included pocket knives, mosquito repellant, compasses and the entrenching tool. These items were necessary for the men’s’ survival as they traveled through the hot and muddy landscape of Vietnam. O’Brien describes the digging of the trenches when the platoon moves to a new location. The soldiers did not want to be given the entrenching tool, because that meant that they alone had to work tirelessly to dig the trench for the platoon. The trench is a representation of survival for the soldiers, however it is also a depiction of the relentless effort that each soldier had to have in order to survive the war. In addition to the entrenching tool, soldiers carried mosquito repellant, knives and a compass. These items represent the conditions in which the soldiers were fighting. The soldiers fought in the hot and humid climate as well as in the dangers of Vietnam’s jungles. Mosquitoes spread disease, which resulted in an epidemic of malaria as well as other fatal illnesses (Seidman). These survival items represent the struggles that soldiers had to endure to merely survive out on their own in Vietnam’s climate. The soldiers were carrying the physical burden of the daunting tasks like digging trenches, but also the emotional burden of wondering whether or not they would survive illnesses like malaria. Again, these burdens contributed to soldier’s lack of morale. Although they could not directly revolt, soldiers silently protested the war. They also went through great lengths to be transferred back home, which included blowing off their own limbs. Soldiers who had yet to be deported started to receive wind of the horrible conditions in Vietnam and deserted or participated in the underground GI movement by participating in secret meetings (Guttmann). Through his description of the items that the soldiers carried that were necessary for survival, O’Brien is emphasizing both the physical and emotional burdens that surviving had on the soldiers without the combat involvement. 

The last set of items described by O’Brien are combat items and items capable of mass destruction. These included the, M-16 assault rifle, grenade launchers, and magazines of ammunition. These items were used to not only kill opposing troops, but also innocent civilians, which was a monumental contributing factor in the anti-war movement (Seidman). Vietnam was the first war where citizens in the states were connected enough to see the results of the mass destruction that our troops were causing. Pictures of burning villages, and dead women and children circulated throughout the United States and only contributed to the growing fire of the anti-war movement (Guttmann). The weapons that the soldiers in the platoon carried were physically extremely heavy as well as the mental and emotional weight that the soldiers carried after using those weapons to kill. Many of the soldiers fighting in the war had been drafted and had not volunteered to fight. They did not want to be on the other side of the world taking orders from their higher ups to set fire to villages and to launch grenades. The men in Jimmy Cross’s platoon seem to only be physically weighed down by the weapons that they carried, however, the emotional and mental effects are implied by O’Brien through his descriptions of the weapons and of the men. O’Brien contrasts the physically and mental weight of the weapons that the platoon carried to emphasize the men’s struggle to not only carry their items, but also their struggle to use those items to kill.

O’Brien himself was in the same shoes as the men in the platoon that he writes about in The Things They Carried. He uses description as well as literary devices in this novel to give an accurate depiction of the physical and mental hardships that soldiers fighting in the Vietnam war had to endure. He contrasts the literal and figurative meanings of the items that he describes to highlight all the struggles that soldiers like himself underwent in combat. Given the mood of his work, it is apparent that O’Brien, along with so many other Vietnam veterans, was enormously impacted by his experiences fighting in the war. 
