
In The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, we see a platoon of soldiers fighting in the jungles of Vietnam going through the everyday struggles of war.  We see key members of the platoon dying and also committing suicide.  Perhaps the reasoning behind writing the Things They Carried is not to show a Vietnam War story but to show the hidden emotions and feelings of soldiers that experienced it every day, Soldiers that might be suffering with PTSD.   

     PTSD is known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  This is an anxiety disorder that affects people after they experience one or more traumatic events.  Many of the soldiers that came back from Vietnam were affected by this disorder.  O’Brien highlights some of these issues in the various characters that he puts in the book, The Things They Carried. The biggest population of individuals that are affected with this disorder are soldiers that are returning from war, but anyone who has experienced a life altering event can be affected just the same.  Approximately 2.7 million soldiers returning from the war when polled reported symptoms of PTSD.  "Veterans Statistics: PTSD, Depression, TBI, Suicide." Veterans PTSD Statistics. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2016./.latest_citation_text.  Many people that have experienced these events might have nightmares, intrusive thoughts and flashbacks.  This is the memory trying to come back into their lives trying to torment them.  Avoidance is another symptom of PTSD.  Avoidance symptoms include avoiding situations that remind the individual of the event and also them trying to avoid people that remind them of the event.  The third symptom of PTSD is where the mind begins to emotionally numb itself.  It does this by feeling emotionally numb and also having reduced numbing experiences.  People that have a problem with this also have detachment issues and also less interest in activities that they once enjoyed.  The last symptom that people face are arousal symptoms.  Other issues that people suffering from PTSD may face are also alcohol and drug abuse.  Since many of the soldiers were exposed to drugs in Vietnam, it was a likely habit that they would bring their addiction back over to the states.  These symptoms include anger, mood swings and irritability. These are the symptoms that a person suffering from Post Dramatic Stress Disorder may face.  "PTSD: National Center for PTSD." DSM-5 Criteria for PTSD -. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2016./.latest_citation_text

  

     The soldiers in The Things They Carried suffer with many emotional problems.  Many of them suffer from PTSD.  Many thoughts of sorrow and sadness overwhelm the soldiers in their day to day lives. Lt. Cross for example suffers with problems because he is genuinely weak.  After Lavender dies, Cross tries to hold the squad together but thoughts of Martha haunt him every day which eventually leads to a breakdown. Norman Bowker also suffers with emotional problems, he just has a hard time expressing his feelings in a healthy way. He believes that much of his time is wasted fighting in the war and most of the fighting is pointless.  Rat Kiley’s emotional distress develops after Bowker commits suicide. Kiley, feeling as if there is no other 

way out, shoots himself in the foot to remove himself from the everyday troubles of war.  He might have done this to escape the horrors of war and to escape the mental stress.   Through the use of descriptive words and third person views on the soldiers’ individual situations, O’Brien uses mental and physical descriptions to show us, as the reader, the real life day to day struggles these men face when dealing with PTSD.  "The Things They Carried.”: Character Analysis.N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2016./.latest_citation_text.

     Soldiers also might have an issue getting back into everyday civilian life.  Since they have been at war for so long.  They might have problems dealing with family members which might include violence and other emotional issues.  We can infer that Lt. Cross will have a hard time getting back into regular life because he finally forgot about his love Martha.  This is obviously a change for Cross because all throughout the book we can see that he loves to write to Martha and thinks about her on a day to day basis but once Lavender dies, he stops thinking about her.  He realizes that he needs to be thinking about his men more than her because they are going through the same situations as him.  That is a huge example for this because we can see the foreshadowing of a hard life back home for Cross.  Many soldiers that came back had a very hard time interacting with their family and other coworkers.  If soldiers are not able to come back home and   That is just one of the realities that we see as a problem for men returning with PTSD.  

     In The Things They Carried, O’brien does a good job in showing us the day to day lives and realities of soldiers that suffer with PTSD.  Through each and every character (soldier), we can see that the war over time really takes an effect on them.  Whether it be mental affects by family and lovers back home to the daily struggle of killing and the thought of being killed it is all one harsh reality.  As I stated in the second paragraph, maybe the point for writing the things they carried was after all not to tell us a war story but maybe tell a story of mentally confused men.  This is done through the accounts of the men and their feelings on what is going on around them.  Whether it be men dying beside them, problems back home with loved ones or just the mental instability of being in a foreign country living moment to moment second to second, all of these men have some sort of emotional trauma that in the end takes up their whole thought train.  It swallows them up like an angry ocean that cannot be tamed.  That is how PTSD and The Things They Carried are related to one another.
