During the Vietnam War over three million people were killed, 58,000 of them being American. After twenty-one long and hard years of fighting in the war, thousands of lives were finally relieved to get their loved ones back to safety and their homes. Although many lost their lives over the long period, a great amount of men came home as different people; they were affected by the cruelty and violence they saw occur. All they could think about was killing their enemies, especially if that meant keeping themselves alive and away from death. In the fictional novel, “The Things They Carried”, author Tim O’Brien creates this novel to allow readers to get a better perspective with what soldiers actually went through during the Vietnam War. Because O’Brien is also a war veteran, he can easily relate to the characters in this novel and knows how to explain war scenes since he has seen them all himself. The characters in this novel all carry things physically and mentally. Many soldiers who return from war deal with depression and PTSD and a couple of these characters such as Kiowa and Ted Lavender deal with these disorders. O’Brien uses autobiographical elements from his time in Vietnam to better interpret common events that happened in the Vietnam war, but also uses the technique of verisimilitude to create this novel.

Throughout the novel, O’Brien continuously describes what the men have to carry physically on their backs and in their hands.  Although most of the men each carried different weapons and other survival tools, they all had a massive amount of weight on their shoulders. A few mentioned things that most of them carried as survival tools included,

“P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wristwatches, dog tags, mosquito repellent, chewing gum, candy, cigarettes, salt tablets, packets of Kool-Aid, lighters, matches, sewing kits, Military Payment, Certificates, Crations, and two or three canteens of water”(303),

and not only did they carry those necessities, but they also had to carry a large amount of weapons which added to their weight. Since everyone carried different items, the groups medic, Kat Riley, carried his medical supplies and “M&M’s for especially bad wounds”(305). Another character, Henry Dobbins, was the big guy in the group of soldiers so they made him carry weapons such as, “the M-60 which weighed 23 pounds unloaded, but which was almost always loaded. In addition, Dobbins carried between 10 and 15 pounds of ammunition draped in belts across his chest and shoulders”(305). O’Brien uses the same weapons in the novel that were also used in real life during the war. There were also others such as medics who needed to stay with the soldiers for health reasons just like Kat Riley in the novel and those like Henry Dobbins who could carry more weapons than most others.

Not only do the men need supplies to survive and weapons to defend themselves during the war, but they also need their good luck charms to keep them fighting so that they can return home to their loved ones. In the novel, O’Brien uses a diverse group of guys who have different superstitions to keep them alive and sane during the war. One of the more innocent soldiers, Kiowa, is described as, “a devout Baptist, carried an illustrated New Testament that had been presented to him by his father, who taught Sunday school in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma”(304). He keeps his faith in God throughout his entire war experience. No matter where he went, “he always took along his New Testament and a pair of moccasins for silence” (307). O’Brien also mentions the older and more macho man Henry Dobbins, and mentions how he, “carried his girlfriend’s pantyhose wrapped around his neck as a comforter”(307). Other men also had superstitions that kept them going such as, “Lieutenant Cross who carried his good-luck pebble, Dave Jensen carried a rabbit’s foot, and Norman Bowker, otherwise a very gentle person, carried a thumb that had been presented to him as a gift by Mitchell Sanders” (309). O’Brien uses these examples to show how the men had something with them to keep them positive during a depressing time. In real life, it was also very common for soldiers to keep personal items that helped remind them of the real world back home. 

Another key that helped keep soldiers from going insane during the war was their romantic life from back home. A major example of this is with Lieutenant Jimmy Cross who was infatuated with this woman named Martha. Cross had two pictures of Martha, many letters that she had written him, and a pebble that she also sent him that she found on the Jersey shoreline and wanted it to represent a, “token of her truest feelings for him”(306).  As he recalls a time when they went to the movies together to watch the famous Bonnie and Clyde movie, he remembers that,

“when he touched her knee, she turned and looked at him in a sad, sober way that made him pull his hand back, but he would always remember the feel of the tweed skirt and the knee beneath it and the sound of the gunfire that killed Bonnie and Clyde, how embarrassing it was, how slow and oppressive” (304).

This simply proves how much Martha does not like Cross, but because he is so “in love” with her, he does not see it and simply dreams about her to an extreme. Cross describes how Martha looks in the pictures with eyes that are “chilly and somber like the ocean in March” (306). He also feels as if they are just “flat and uninvolved” (308). Unfortunately for Cross his romantic life was only one sided, but the fact of having hope for someone back home helped get him through the long and rough days. O’Brien adds these additional details into the soldiers’ lives to make them more humanlike and it is also something that was very common for those who actually fought in the war. 

O’Brien also compares the novel with actual circumstances when he talks about how the soldiers have their mental breakdowns and even some end up with PTSD and depression. One of the first characters who is seen to have major PTSD is Ted Lavender. Lavender is constantly terrified of the war while in combat and he “carried tranquilizers until he was shot in the head” (303). He could not go anywhere or do anything without taking tranquilizers because of him being so scared of death. According to the organization help guide, one of the distinctive traits or behaviors of PTSD is “being on guard all the time, jumpy, and emotionally reactive” (PTSD in Military Veterans). Clearly, Lavender had a severe issue with this particular aspect of the disorder. Unfortunately after Lavender was killed, Kiowa was affected in a way that he could not stop replaying the scene in his head and “kept explaining how you had to be there, how fast it was, how the poor guy just dropped like so much concrete. Boom-down, he said. Like cement” (306).  Kiowa also experiences side effects of PTSD when he continuously has “recurrent, intrusive reminders of the traumatic event” (PTSD in Military Veterans). Another character, Lieutenant Cross, was also affected by Lavender’s sudden death. He became so depressed that he dug himself a hole and cried in it. He also tried “not to cry” and “he felt shame. He hated himself” (311). Cross mainly became depressed over Lavender’s death simply because he felt that he was so infatuated with Martha and never stopped thinking about her that if he wasn’t thinking about her in that moment, he could’ve possibly saved Lavender’s life. Even Cross shows symptoms of “negative changes in thoughts and moods” (PTSD in Military Veterans). that lead him to his depression. Disorders like these are extremely common in war, especially the Vietnam War. O’Brien uses vivid imagery to express what the soldiers saw when Lavender dies and describes it as, “He lay with his mouth open. The teeth were broken. There was a swollen black bruise under his left eye” (309). Scenes like this happened constantly during war and when soldiers kept seeing it time after time, it led many of them to these disorders. 

Over the long period of 21 years at war, hundreds of thousands of innocent people were killed all because they were fighting for their country. O’Brien uses vivid context to allow readers to experience a lot of the encounters the soldiers had to face in “The Things They Carried”. Because O’Brien is a war veteran, he can express what the war was like even though he does not use his own personal experiences. His words transport the audience back into a time where a long, cruel war was unheard of. Even though this novel is fiction, it brings light to the horrors of the two decades that many men had to go through. The men in the Vietnam War carried more than just their weapons and personal mementos, they bared the weight of loss, civility, and terror. As O’Brien says, “They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried”(306)
