Although the Vietnam War ended 30 years ago, stories and textbooks immortalize the devastation that occurred throughout its 20-year reign. They tell tales of brave soldiers and worried wives at home, but that’s only one side of the truth. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien revealed multiple hidden facets of the war unseen and un-talked about before its publication in 1990. The stories in the school books never told about how men were simply expected to put their lives on the line for the war, or how reluctancy to do so resulted in shame. It was a different time, and America had a reputation to uphold as a country of power. The societal pressures of America’s mid-20th century emphasized the standard of masculinity, fear of shame, and search for purpose depicted in O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. 

American society in the 1950s-1970s held expectations for men to be masculine, controlling, and fearless. Even American media, through the help of TV shows and radio movies, installed a strict gender role for men to act a certain way; avoid any thing perceived as feminine or weak (Gilbert). This societal norm translated into the Vietnam War, when any man that was fit to go to war was expected to do so. This is addressed multiple times throughout The Things They Carried, as O’Brien told about how men in the war put on a front of fearlessness and strength. This was clearly evident when he wrote, “They [the soldiers] sneered at sick call. They spoke bitterly about guys who had found release by shooting off their own toes or fingers… It was fierce, mocking talk, with only a trace of envy or awe, but even so the image played itself out behind their eyes,” (78). This quote exemplifies how men, even among themselves, were expected to remain fearless and unbreakable. However, this quote also reveals how under that façade, those same men all wanted out of the madness of the war. The Things They Carried was not published until 20 years after the end of the Vietnam War. During this time, veterans established families, went back to finish school, or simply lived day by day coping with the aftershock of the war. The publication of this work was read by the not only these veterans, but also their friends and families. It acted almost as an exposé that revealed to those closest to the veterans what they could never say out loud. The Things They Carried publicized the stress placed on American soldiers to fight without complaint and without fear in the face of death. 

The same societal pressure that urged men to hold unwavering masculinity was also the pressure that motivated many soldiers to enter the war, or to accept their draft. This was the case for O’Brien himself, who upon receiving his draft, nearly immigrated to Canada to escape active duty. In his own words, “I was a coward. I went to the war,” (16). This was an interesting statement, as it seems almost self-contradictory to be a coward that willingly goes to war. He was afraid of what society – his friends, family, colleagues- would think of him if he ran from his drafting. Fear of their opinions brought O’Brien to enter into a war in which he held no interest. As he became acclimated with Vietnam, he realized he was not the only soldier who held this sentiment. At one point, O’Brien wrote, “Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to…They died so as not to die of embarrassment,” (18). He candidly declared what many men were ashamed to admit. American society during the mid 1900s assumed courage and valor from each man, regardless of the stakes. Twenty years later, upon the release of this book, many Americans were finally able to see the fragility and fear these men hid from the public. O’Brien provided a more substantive reality that had no heroes or valor, only a raw glimpse into the mind of America’s soldiers. 

The Things They Carried contained graphic and uncensored stories of how ambiguously immoral war could be. Some examples of this come in the form of graphic descriptions of men hanging in trees or a water buffalo slaughtered by an enraged American soldier. At times the language or explanations were so graphic they made the reader uncomfortable. This was done intentionally by O’Brien, who worked to make his story as real as he could, not only to reveal life on the other side, but also to cope with the memories. Each soldier who went overseas witnessed acts such as innocent villages burned to the ground, the death of their best friends, or the weight of guilt that came with the killing of another human. As O’Brien described, “A true war story is never moral…if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue,” (131). These words came from a veteran himself, and yet this is what America influenced millions of men to undergo. The vocabulary and content led for the book to be banned in many classrooms and even some libraries in the United States when it was first published. Although straightforward and substantial, this striking perspective on the war shocked many Americans. 

With soldiers dying every day, and no end in sight for families, tensions in the US were high and most felt hopeless with the Vietnam War in its entirety. As the war waged on for years upon years, the American people became frustrated with the loss and devastation the war brought with it. The Vietnam War took the lives of not only a myriad of American soldiers, but also millions of civilians overseas. The combination of these two forces drove many American citizens to become dissatisfied with America’s state of war. This did nothing to change the societal norm, but it did begin to attract media interest in the actual purpose of the war. It brought attention to the concept that many of these young men, along with their families back home, didn’t even know what they were fighting for. This was captured when O’Brien stated, “Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons,” (203). This quote illustrates how it seemed to him that the fighting was not clearly validated. The soldiers were fighting without purpose for the sake of their reputation. These were very young men, often still teenagers, and they often had only a vague understanding of the war’s motives. As O’Brien wrote, “It was a war to stop the Communists, plain and simple…and you were a treasonous pussy if you had second thoughts about killing or dying for plain and simple reasons,” (79). This demonstrated not only the reoccurring theme of expected fearlessness, but also the uncertainty of any war at all. Meanwhile, public opinion steadily turned against the war following 1967 and by 1970 two thirds of Americans believed that the U.S. had made a mistake by sending troops to fight in Vietnam (Lunch, W. & Sperlich, P.). By 1973, American dissatisfaction had escalated to protests in DC, riots in major cities, and anti-war propaganda in most major media sources. The release of O’Brien’s graphic and honest work of historical fiction so many years later would serve to justify several of these objections as the Americans who didn’t serve in the war were able to get an up close and personal description of what the Vietnam War was truly like. 

Through his candid and personal approach, Tim O’Brien was able to embody and uncover the pressure placed on Vietnam soldiers to laugh at fear and not ask questions. He revealed to America what could not be said by the soldiers themselves due to an assumption of acceptance by American society. Through The Things They Carried, America was finally able to witness the true expectations and horror forced upon each of those men. 
