The Vietnam War was one for the books. Not only was it a war that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, but it also was a war that was widely disapproved of. War itself is very difficult for everyone, especially the soldiers fighting in it. Soldiers will see things that are unimaginable to everyone here at home. Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” details the physical things a soldier will carry with him during his time in Vietnam. It seems like it is just basic things, but it also represents everything that has happened to them while fighting. “The Things They Carried” uses the list of the things the soldiers literally carried to show that they were a metaphor for the emotional burdens the soldiers carried with them in order to argue that these physical and emotion burdens the soldiers were feeling are unique to those who fought in the Vietnam War.

In this story, introduced are the members of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’s platoon and the things they carry with them. We learn that Cross has someone he loves at home, Martha, and she sends him letters. But Martha and him are not in any relationship, and Cross will overthink everything Martha has said to him. We also are hinted that a member of the platoon, Lavender, has died. Every so often we are reminded of this and each time it is mentioned, the description gets more and more detailed. Finally, the narrator tells us how Lavender died, “[he was] shot in the head on his way back from peeing” (O’Brien 334). After this is revealed the story becomes extremely negative and Lavender’s death stays with all the members of the platoon. He can talk more freely about the situations that these men were faced with and “emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love,” (O’Brien 338). The narrator gets more and more deep about all the things the men were feeling and it paints the picture of the real hell that not only these men but also every other soldier went through in Vietnam.

In the 1980s, some of the beginning research was being done on PTSD and what affects its cause. One study found that “social characteristics such as race, contextual factors such as social support, and subsequent psychological and behavioral problems” (Laufer 82) also play a key role in PTSD in a soldier, not just combat. It was also the call to action to fix the way PTSD is measured, declaring that, “the importance of developing a well-specified model of war stress in order to determine its casual effects on life-course outcomes,” (Laufer 82) was needed now more than ever. All this together helped to paint the beginning picture of how complex a disease PTSD is and the effects it can have on people’s lives.

There are men and women who go to fight for this nation today, and many will come back with some type of physical or emotional injury. It is something that shows the world and everyone they meet that they have been in war and they have seen horrifying things that change a person forever. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, is a very common disorder soldiers face when they return from war. Today, people are lucky that there is thorough research that has been done, so that veterans can get the proper help they need. However, back during the Vietnam War era, this kind of research had not yet been done. Back then, most thought the disorder was just due to the combat exposure soldiers had been exposed to, and that is a large part of the cause. It was the insecurity of not knowing when someone would strike and what would happen to the soldiers. It was, “the feeling of helplessness in the face of forces beyond individual control” (Laufer 66). It was the journey of being in a strange and foreign place and going through and wreaking havoc on this place and watching it all happen. It was not being respected by the Vietnamese that the American soldiers were there initially to help. It was the possibility of becoming a prisoner of war. For Cross, one of his problems was being away from home and being away from Martha so he is forced to overthink and overanalyze just like, “They were signed Love, Martha but Lieutenant Cross understood Love was only a way of signing and did not mean what he sometimes pretended it meant” (O’Brien 328). Another of his problems was having a close friend of his die in combat. The kind of combat found during the Vietnam War is unimaginable, and having a casualty be a friend is a burden no one should have to face. Cross continues to add to his emotional baggage as well because, “they carried the emotional baggage of men who might die” (O’Brien 338). After Lavender died, Cross felt that feeling of life being fragile and he carried that with him too.

One extremely important factor to put into the mix is the large amount of disapproval for the Vietnam War. The origin of being in Vietnam was to stop the spread of communism. However, from almost the beginning of the war there was Congressional disapproval, but also “newspapers carry[ing] long lists of lawyers, teachers, clergymen, writers, and students opposed to the war” (Guttmann 57). It was a subject that consumed the nation and divided it all the same. Many people at home became more obsessed with how wrong it was to be there than what the goal of being there was. There were riots and each had their own reasons for why America should not be there. But amidst all this protest and hate, there were still soldiers out there fighting for the nation. These soldiers, whether they agreed or disagreed with the reasons for them being there, were still doing their duty to America and fighting. Cross and his platoon were out in the think of it, being exposed to all kinds of things and all they could do was to, “endured...They did not submit to the obvious alternative, which was simply to close the eyes and fall…too frightened to be cowards” (O’Brien 339). These men were so scared to be in Vietnam, afraid that around the corner they would get killed. But they were also so scared to go home. They had to fight for their country because it was the honorable thing to do, but it was also terrifying to go back to a place where so many would hate Vietnam veterans.

“The Things They Carried” shows the journey Cross’s platoon goes through on their time in Vietnam. At the beginning the story being organized in lists adds structure to a story that is difficult to tell, the story of how one of Cross’s men, Lavender, is killed. As the narrator continues to hint at Lavender’s death more and more, he gets more descriptive and once the narrator says how Lavender died, the story becomes much more raw. He begins to show the effect the war has had on all the men. The narrator details how much the soldiers carried, “shameful memories…common secrets of cowardice…the instinct to run,” (O’Brien 338) meaning that they were all terrified and just wanted out. The narrator also shows how the most important thing any of them could do was to keep, “maintaining the masks of composure,” (O’Brien 339) in hopes to put on the face to each other that everything was okay and that they actually were not worried about all their burdens. The men would dream of freedom, of getting out just to escape the things they carried. They thought that if they got out then all their problems would leave them. But that was exactly what the problem was; the way they would feel, all the things they have carried with them, like the stress from the death of their friend, would stay with them even after they left. When they returned home they would also feel the extreme disapproval people had towards the war. They would think that their friend had died for nothing based on how people felt about the war. All this together would spiral out of control to become a disease, PTSD, that would have an effect on the rest of their lives.

O’Brien’s story portrays the pain and suffering a soldier in Vietnam went through, and as a Vietnam veteran himself, he has an amazing insight into what things were really like there. Many came back broken people and experienced PTSD from their own unique situations and coming back to a nation that so openly hated the Vietnam War is enough to damage anyone. From the details expressed in the story, coupled with research, the soldier’s experience in Vietnam is something so different from any other traumatic experience. As with every war comes a different soldier experience, but the Vietnam soldier is one who is stuck in a painful time. He goes day to day masking how he feels, and keeping everything that happens inside as to not show weakness. He hopes to find peace by coming back to his home but is instead met by the opposite of peace and that is what sticks with him for the rest of his life.
