In the novel “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien describes a platoon of soldiers fighting in Vietnam. In the beginning of the story, O’Brien really emphasizes the things they physically carry; while describing the items, he also mentions the physical weight of the items. In the beginning of the novel, these statistics are irrelevant; however, later on in the novel, as the soldiers start to see more violence and fighting, this idea of weight becomes extremely important. In the early 1900’s, as new technology was being invented, people created weapons of mass destruction. As these weapons caused death tolls to rise in wars such as Vietnam, more and more soldiers started to develop PTSD, a mental condition that can lead to a lot of problems. 

The story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien depicts an army platoon made up of scared young men. At the beginning of the story, O’Brien describes the items that each soldier carries around to comfort themselves and to help them cope with what is happening. As fighting intensifies and casualties rise, the men in the platoon start to change, they start to become more depressed, angrier, and more violent. After the war they still display some of these symptoms, depression is the biggest symptom that the platoon displayed, they frequently described the disturbing images they see.

The Vietnam War started in 1954 and ended with a ceasefire in 1975, making it the longest war in United States history. Over the twenty-one years of fighting, over 2.7 million United States soldiers fought. This war was different than any other war in United States history because they were not fighting another conventional army. Most of the Vietnamese soldiers dressed as ordinary civilians, causing issues with discriminating between soldiers and civilians. These people would often sneak up on soldiers and would ambush platoons. This constant barrage of violence took a heavy toll on American soldiers; at one point in the war 100 Americans were killed per week. American soldiers started “zippo raids” that would go into villages and burn everything down and taking munitions. This violence towards civilians caused between 533,000 and 1,000,000 to be killed (Us.History.org 1). With seeing such a high casualty rate of American soldiers and enemy fighters, soldier’s frustrations rose significantly. 

The My Lai Massacre happened when a platoon of soldiers killed over 500 women, children, and elderly. Soldiers grew extremely angry with civilians, because of their attempts to help enemy soldiers. Eventually frustrations rose and the soldiers took their anger out on the wrong people. Frustrations like this showed up often in O’Brien’s novel, such as when the soldiers blew up a puppy. As moral decreased, soldiers started to show more signs of PTSD, Rat Kiley and Norman Bowker showed severe symptoms in the book, Kiley would imagine people cut open and what their organs would look like. Norman Bowker hung himself in a YMCA locker room because he could not handle the things the platoon saw. PTSD had a great effect on not only this one platoon but the thousands of soldiers that saw active duty in Vietnam.

PTSD affects more than 31 percent of all Vietnam veterans. These veterans have about a 21 percent higher chance of committing suicide. Symptoms of PTSD can include increased violent behavior and depression (King 382). The soldiers in the book frequently displayed these symptoms, often when reminiscing over home or people. Jimmy Cross carried pictures of a woman named Martha who he loved deeply; this love often distracted him from the harsh, brutal reality that he was living in.  His depression and distraction made him blame himself for the death of Ted Lavender and Kiowa. Azar showed how soldiers experienced a higher level of anger and violence towards people. Throughout “The Things They Carried,” he constantly tortured Vietnamese civilians and made fun of people’s dead bodies. Norman Bowker’s suicide took a heavy toll on the soldiers, which shows how warfare affected the soldiers.  

The weight of emotion was extremely heavy on soldiers, in the book, numerous of the platoon’s soldiers died, having to see their comrades dead and mutilated caused severe mental distress and often lead to anger, depression, and violence. Azar at the beginning of the book was a mean, cruel, and violent person. However, after he had to pull Kiowa out of a sewage field, Azar seemed to be very depressed and humbled by the experience. When Ted Lavender died, Jimmy Cross was depressed and blamed himself for a significant amount of time. In the army, soldiers often refer to each other as their “brothers,” this shows how close these men are, having to pull a man, whom they called their brother, out of battle in a body bag is extremely strenuous on people. Especially when the body is mutilated, and in Curt Lemon’s case, the soldiers had to climb a tree in order to remove what was left of his body. The beginning of the book emphasizes weight to give a comparison of how much heavier the weight of these memories and experiences are. The gruesome and disturbing memories can weigh the soldiers down for life and especially in the moment. In a lot of cases, the memories can cause veterans to end their own lives. Soldiers have to do what they need to do in order to survive. Often it is kill, or be killed. So soldiers often act on impulse, causing irrational behavior such as the soldiers during the My Lai Massacre, or Azar’s brutal nature. 

The real weight of war often shows long after the war is over. Soldiers that return from war have a higher tendency to show violence towards family and friends. These violent tendencies are often a result from years of needing violent behavior in order to stay alive. The long Vietnam War took a massive toll on soldiers, with the high death rate and increased battles. Soldiers who survived the harsh reality of the war often have PTSD. The PTSD often results in anger, depression, and violence.  These effects on soldiers give them a significantly higher chance of taking their own life. 
