Studying the Vietnam war in association with the excerpt from The Things They Carried lays a foundation for the lack of care U.S soldiers receive when returning home from modern wars. In Tim O’Brien’s historically fictional novel he details the everyday lives of soldiers as they navigate personal struggles at home and abroad. Post-Vietnam was the first time in in United States history that as many soldiers were returning home with mental illnesses as physical ones. The dissatisfaction for the war back home only compounded veteran’s issues because funding for returning soldiers was next to impossible. This lack of care in both diagnosis and treatment can be seen as the beginning for the modern health care crisis for returning soldiers from modern day wars. The Things They Carried illustrates the specific horrors and struggles that a Vietnam warrior dealt with. Through the examination of The Things They Carried and returning soldiers accounts and records about their treatment it illustrates how the system of care for veterans was broken after Vietnam and has not been fixed. 

The most iconic illness for soldiers returning from Vietnam was Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. The mental illness was not diagnosed in its modern form until 1980. It’s addition to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Psychiatric Disorders (DSM) only came after serious pressure on the medical community to explain the widespread mental issues many returning veterans were having. PTSD is described by the presence of acute or long-term symptoms of traumatic flashback’s, bad dreams, paranoia, and irrational fear. For Vietnam veterans and others returning from war their worst memories from war become an everyday reality. According to the National Vietnam Veteran’s Readjustment Survey about 30% of male soldiers experienced the disease sometime in their life and about 27% of their female counterparts experienced the same. The treatments for PTSD are as wide ranging as the symptoms. In modern medicine various anti-depressants known to help with symptoms of the illness are used but more importantly therapies and support groups have proven to be the most effective way to treat the disease. Today various support groups for veterans are available and provided by non-profit organizations most notably the wounded warrior project. The access to drugs and intense psychological care are much harder to come by for veterans who cannot afford top of the line health care. 

Anxiety disorders and serious depression which led to wide spread addiction also ravished departing veterans from Vietnam. As seen in The Things They Carried most soldiers were prescribed some sort of medication in order to suppress fear and other emotions that would limit a man’s ability to fight. Almost 15% of soldiers became reliant on some sort of amphetamine or codeine prescription in the war. These anti-stimulants were prescribed in doses by the military at 3-4 times the rate for civilians. This short sighted approach by the United States military did reduce the rate of mental breakdowns by two fold compared to Korea and World War 2 but left hundreds of thousands if not millions of soldiers in debilitating shape when they returned home. Back at home without the aide of mind numbing drugs soldiers returned crippled with anxiety, depression, and addiction at much higher rates than civilians. The two main drugs of choice were heroin and alcohol which only accelerated the symptoms of depression and anxiety for many returning home. Since the average age of a returning soldier was only 24 these illnesses had lifelong affects. Thousands remain in poverty because of the depression and addiction that has taken over their lives because of supposedly harmless treatments to them during their time as service men and women. Just as in the case with PTSD there are many great organizations and charities that provide grants and funds to send troubled warriors to treatment facilities for their addiction. These organizations have helped many but countless others have been left behind to recapture their life alone while fighting an uphill battle to receive medical care from Veteran’s affairs. 

The Vietnam War was a highlight tape for how horrific war can be. Napalm, agent orange, and destructive guerilla warfare were unseen before Vietnam. All of these aspects created scenes for soldiers that left a lasting mark. The National Institute for Mental Health has identified ten contributing factors to contracting PTSD and ten resisting factors. When reading about the graphic details of this war in The Things They Carried it is not hard to find numerous contributing factors to why so many veterans from Vietnam contracted it. These are kids thrust into a foreign country with the job to kill an enemy they know nothing about. As said best from this passage in The Things They Carried "He was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, his face neither expressive nor inexpressive. One eye was shut. The other was a star-shaped hole.” (O’Brien). The eyes and bodies of those they killed through explosive measures surely haunted many long after their time in Vietnam ended. Agent orange and Napalm burned its opponent in mass quantities leaving nothing in its wake. Hardly traditional warfare this style of killing is proven to leave a mark on anyone who witnessed it far more than battle with lines of soldiers and an unwritten ethics agreement to not torture. It is fair to concede that no war is pretty but no modern war could be described as more destructive on a soldier’s entire life than Vietnam. The Thing’s They carried illustrates how difficult it was to maintain hope eventually leading to unseen rates of mental illness from the war.

The Vietnam War is the most highly contested war the United States has ever been involved in. From the outset many Americans were skeptical about the mission of the conflict and were less than welcoming to those that decided to fight in it. This apathy toward the war was the main reason for the lack of help returning soldiers received. The breadth of volunteer organizations available today was not there in the force that exists today. The Veteran’s affairs organization was restructured during Vietnam but was not funded to the level to extend care to the amount of veteran’s it needed to. As much as the government pushed its services through these agencies it could not overcome the serious anti-war movement underway in the United States. What legislators and the head of the Veteran’s department failed to realize was that with the amount mentally and physically ill people that were returning back home it would require an effort by the entire population to appropriately care for these people. Soldiers reported feeling isolated and alienated by civilians upon their return. This was a far cry from the hero’s welcome that their World War 2 counter parts received. In The Things They Carried Martha, a pen pal of Jimmy Cross, seems almost oblivious to the perilous situation that her friend is in; a sentiment that many people back home felt. Despite the scenes of the war that played out daily on nighttime television news the people of America felt a lack of responsibility to care for heroes because of personal opinions about the legitimacy of the war. The feeling of a lack of responsibility to care for veterans started in this very moment and has hampered the development of a proper veteran’s care unit all the way into treating soldiers from Afghanistan in 2016. 

The primary care unit and point of contact for veteran’s is the Veteran’s Affairs department which has seen its share of criticism. The majority of these failures can be seen in the years immediately following Vietnam. Even within The Things They Carried the steps toward failure for care can be seen. Their mental health care is unseen in the field of battle with most of the budgeting going to physical care for soldiers. This is important because it is the fundamental reason why the VA continues to fail many veteran’s returning home. After Vietnam millions of dollars were pumped into updating hospitals and surgical centers to save lives of the wounded. While these steps were important to reduce war time casualties it did not address the more widespread problem of mental health. After analyzing the novel in a historical context it sheds new light on what the US Government cared about in regards to its soldiers. What you realize is that it is about saving numbers specifically having a respectable death rate. This is relevant because it leaves out millions of those with PTSD, addiction, depression, and numerous other mental conditions that have severely limited the lives of many veterans. The mad dash to strictly save lives is an important one but it highlights the short sightedness of the military in many ways. There are many parallels to be found between poor military strategy that relies upon short term thinking as the meaning to go to war and the same military that fails to provide long term health care for its veterans. What is needed to revive the Veteran’s system is more than money or talk of reform. There has to be a major overhaul in the mindset of every American toward returning troops. Everyone has a role to play to re-acclimate a modern soldier to civilian life. The wars from Vietnam to now are different than anything seen in history. They are more violent and the weapons couldn’t be more destructive to watch. The returning veterans must be cared for differently than anything has in history and it starts at the ground level with every citizen. 

The experiences of soldier in Vietnam is comparable to that of a modern day soldier. Gone are the days of fronts, lines, and trenches and welcome to never knowing who or where the enemy is on a given day. In The Things They Carried soldiers accounts are the baseline for what to expect going forward in modern day war. Advantages are constantly sought after often without proper testing or understanding of the consequences. Many plights of Vietnam are the benchmark for similar struggles experienced in modern day wars. Napalm has been replaced by drone strikes as the primary source of civilian casualties but the message has remained the same. These destructive measures wear on a soldier and it is evident that struggles have only worsened for modern day soldiers. Suicide rates are sky high for troops returning home. This is an interesting point because it suggests that mental health is still very far behind curbing the immense problems that veterans have when returning home. The United States over the course of the war in Vietnam became desensitized to the harshness of war. This is important because it cements Vietnam’s place as the starting point for not only the issues in veteran’s care but for the reasons for having to change the entire way that we care for returning soldiers. The war was certainly difficult and was handled improperly but for the most part the same questions are continually asked when America when involved in a conflict: Why are we here? How can we care for our veteran’s better? The truth is that both of these questions are equally important but must be dealt with separately. This matters because the upmost care should always be rewarded to an American veteran simply because of the extreme trauma they have gone through. Vietnam changed Americans by making them ask the why question long before asking how to better care. Until this changes the United States will always be behind on caring for its veterans.

The outcomes of the Vietnam War has placed the United States in an immense hole when it comes to caring for and treating the mental health problems of its returning soldiers. When researching systemic problems in mental health care for veterans alongside Tom O’Brian’s novel The Things They Carried it revealed many issues that arose in Vietnam and evolved into long-term issues that carry into the USA today. PTSD, depression, anxiety, and addiction affected Vietnam War veteran’s worse than any conflict in American history. A short – sighted approach and a lack of research led to many failures to take care of human beings fighting for our country in Vietnam and domestically when they returned. It will take the effort of an entire nation to rebuild decades of stigma associated with returning veteran’s with psychiatric issues that all initiated during and immediately following Vietnam. 
