
In “The Things They Carried,” the Alpha Company is mobilized to fight in the Vietnam War. The soldiers carry goods necessary to their survival as well personal items. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries letters and photos from a female friend named Martha, and spends most of his time mooning over her. The first casualty for the company is Ted Lavender, shot dead while relieving himself. Cross blames himself for the death because he thinks he was too busy thinking about Martha to properly take care of his troops. He burns her letters and photographs and decides to be a better leader. PTSD can be caused many ways, loss and sacrifice probably being the largest causes.

On a section of the Veterans affairs website there is a separate place for just Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a disorder that effects almost 31% of Vietnam veterans, 10% of the gulf war veterans, and 11% of the Afghani war veterans. There are 4 main symptoms of PTSD as follows, 1 being you relive the events of what caused your PTSD, this can cause nightmares and flashbacks and can be triggered by seeing, hearing or smelling something that causes you to relive the event the second symptom causes you to avoid situations that remind you of the event, such as avoiding crowds, driving cars and might keep busy and avoid asking for help because it keeps you from having to think about the event. The third symptom can cause your feelings or beliefs take a negative turn, you may not have a feeling  of love towards others, may steer away from relationships, you may think the world is completely 

dangerous and trust no one. The fourth and final symptom is jitters and always being alert and on the lookout for danger, you may have a hard time sleeping, concentrating, startled by loud noises and surprises, and prefer sitting with your back to a wall in restaurants or waiting rooms. 

In the novel “The Things They Carried,” immediately after the death of Ted Lavender, lieutenant cross digs himself a fox hole and weeps about his soldier’s death. After the man is done crying he decides it is best that he get rid of things that remind him of what got Lavender killed, the things he has from Martha. He burns all the letters she sent him and the pictures that he has of her. These actions can be used as a form of showing thethird symptom of PTSD (negative change in feelings), because he finally realized that his obsession over that woman is a problem and believes that to be the cause of Lavenders death, because he was crooning over the thought of her virginity when he should have protected his man.

When you hear about the Vietnam veterans what comes to mind? Maybe you think those guys are heroes and some of the bravest men ever, or you might think that war was disgusting and everyone associated with it is too, neither side of that argument is entirely true. If you ask a Vietnam veteran what they think of themselves almost all of them will say they were just men following the orders they were given nothing more nothing less, however there are the select few that went above and beyond the call of duty and those men would be considered heroes. In a time like this the words hero, bravery and warrior all get a shady confusion over them because people can’t distinguish one from the other. 

Being a hero doesn’t mean that you charged headfirst into a battle and got a victory, though that is true in some cases, it means that you did something (unusual in some cases) that helped gain an advantage over your adversary and a chance to win a war altogether that is the inevitable outcome. People however get confused when they hear the word hero and though it is not a bad thing they will tell you anyone who was in the military was a hero, this is not always the case because very few of them have done such a thing to constitute hero status by risking themselves individually above the necessary sacrifice. This can be related to the novel because Ted Lavender would be considered a hero to some because he died in the line of duty, whether fighting or not he died in the war.

Bravery is something all military personnel must have to keep fighting on no matter what despite fear and hate or whatever might hinder normal peoples fighting ability, because if they don’t then they cannot protect the people of their country and keep them safe. This is confused with heroism in some was because on must be brave to be heroic but don’t have to be heroic to be brave. Bravery is relatable to the novel by the fact that the men have certain things that help keep them brave like the heavy machine gunner keeps his girlfriend’s pantyhose around his neck and that can be used to say I will come back to you and there is also Lavenders “tranquilizers” they can be used to instill bravery into a nervous man and keep the fear at bay and keep him brave.

With the above definitions, you can relate them to Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”. This can be done because in what makes a hero by Karl Marlantes he gives us these definitions, and as a Vietnam veteran himself has an idea of the hardships. It is stated that everyone in the military is a warrior because they are willing to fight and risk themselves for the people of their country and be willing to instill violence on others who decide to choose sides.

In the end, it can be said that the military has both good and bad aspects, the good is usually in the forms of what you instill on others and the bad is how you are effected after getting out.


   