“The Things They Carried” is a novel written by Tim O’Brien in which he describes his experiences being drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. In the Carolina Reader, pieces of this novel are presented that briefly tell a short story of the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War and how it affected the soldiers. These pieces are presented in order to construct a text with an alluring story line, along with valuable historical context. O’Brien reveals first hand experiences throughout the war and their effects on himself and others. A known history of the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War benefits the reader by giving them a better understanding of why the United States soldiers fighting in Vietnam had their specific thoughts, feelings, and experiences. The historical context helps the reader fully grasp and fully empathize with the events occurring throughout this story by filling in information that the reader may not be aware of just by reading the words on the page.

The story describes how the United States provides resources to the soldiers, which gives them a feeling of support while in a time of uncertainty. Even with all the unknown reasons for the War they know their country will always provide them with the resources they need as O’Brien explains “there was at least the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry” (336). Although the soldiers felt their country’s support, they did not feel a purpose for their presence in Vietnam. Dougan evaluates the purpose the United States thought they had in Vietnam and the desire the they had to keep their troops well supplied when he quotes President Johnson: “‘Our strength imposes on us an obligation to assure that this type of aggression does not succeed’” (31). The aggression mentioned is the aggression of the communist state of North Vietnam oppressing the South. The strong desire to stop this oppression is what fuels the United States to keep their men supplied well, like mentioned by O’Brien. However, even though the soldiers were well supplied, they still had a feeling of purposelessness. This feeling was contrasted by the United States because they felt that they had a necessary purpose to be fighting in this nation. The reader understanding these two contrasts comes from background knowledge about the soldier’s feelings and the United States desire to accomplish their goal of stopping the spread of communism. Not only did the soldiers feel purposelessness due to the things that they carried, but they also felt purposelessness by the missions they were carrying out.

The United States wished to end the Vietnam War by getting involved but it was made difficult by the gruesome war tactics that the Communists used, such as the Tet Offensive (Hess 24). Gruesome war tactics caused O’Brien and his fellow U.S. soldiers to fight back with equally as horrific tactics, which are revealed in his story. During the descriptions of the horrific shootings and bombings of villages, O’Brien develops the sense that the war has no purpose as he describes their memories of the missions: “…it was not the battle, it was the endless march, village to village, without purpose, nothing won or lost” (335). Dougan touches on the topic of the United States’ empty involvement in the war as he quotes the South Vietnamese ambassador to the U.S. revealing how there “no sense of purpose or direction among the high officials of the government” (261). This overall feeling of purposelessness about the war is parallel to the U.S. soldier’s feelings described in this story. Not only does the reader feel the soldiers lack of mission while reading O’Brien’s story but they feel a greater lack of mission if they have an in depth background about how it was historically noted that soldiers felt little desire and purpose for this War. 

Hess analyzes how the lethal tactics of the United States’ warfare “inflict instant death or disfigurement on its victims” (5) and how this “triggered still greater moral indignation” (5) in Vietnam. This is described when O’Brien outlines the mission where Lieutenant Jimmy Cross led his men into the village of Than Khe, burning everything. This part of the story causes some controversy because the true reason that the Lieutenant led his men to burn down a village was to overcome his guilt he felt towards his responsibility of his men’s death. This reveals how not all tactics were planned and necessary, some of the troops took matters into their own hands which is described by Hess and Dougan in their books. Hess describes one incident during the war that “ended with the Americans burning 150 dwellings” (138) where innocent families lived. This incident was definitely not an effort to win the war. However, there were times where the aggressive attacks felt necessary in and effort to win the war. Dougan describes one of these necessary efforts when he mentions the American attempt to discourage villagers that were supporting the communists by burning their homes (111). These historical contexts would help the reader understand the feelings the soldiers had about the pointless missions they executed, which would lead the reader to fully empathize with the soldiers.

The different missions Lieutenant Cross led his men in required the men to carry various tangible and intangible things. These missions are historical aspects of the Vietnam War that are exhibited in Hess’s book when he describes the mission as “nothing more than dispersed combat marines doing search-and-destroy missions at a small-unit level alongside South Vietnamese forces they were training” (123). Different physical objects are necessary for the soldiers to carry throughout their missions, however, they also carry burdens mentally. For example, O’Brien describes how the night missions typically caused the soldiers to carry fear with them. Fear drove majority of their missions because they were afraid of the unknown innocent people, this why the missions required such high volume of things to carry mentally and physically. Dougan touches on this subject as he describes the “raw fear of the unknown” (60) that the U.S. soldiers carried, while Hess examines a specific example of how “television coverage was not characterized by images of horrific bloodshed” (141). This detail in Hess’s book demonstrated how the public was widely unaware of the horrific character of this War because of the media, however this did not change the fact that the War was still horrific and traumatizing to the soldiers. These soldiers were experiencing the “horrific bloodshed” (Hess 141) firsthand. It is important for the reader to understand that this fear was a widely experienced emotion during this time of war. This understanding of a historically collective fear gives the reader an insight on the horrors the soldier’s experienced while reading O’Brien’s story. 

The soldiers used various euphemisms to “destroy the reality of death itself” (O’Brien 338) which helps them cope with the losses they endure throughout the war in a lighthearted way. In “The Things They Carried”, Ted Lavender dies by being shot in the head on his way back from using the restroom. His fellow soldiers were immensely upset which fueled their desire to make light of the situation to keep their minds sane. They illustrated his death as “zapped while zipping” (O’Brien 338). This reality of death being so sudden is mentioned in Hess’s book: “followed by the shot, blood spurting from the head, the instant death and the collapsing body” (163). This description almost perfectly matches the description O’Brien uses in his story: “He was dead weight. There was no twitching or flopping” (330). It is important for the reader to know the brutality of death that occurs during such wars because in this story it is not fully revealed how common and harsh death was due to soldiers making light of death by euphemisms. This story uses euphemisms to hide the true horrors of death that occurred during the Vietnam war, which is why knowledge about the commonality and harshness of death is vital for the reader to understand the soldiers need to use such lighthearted words and phrases.

“The Things They Carried”, in the Carolina Reader, tells a short story of the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War and how it affected the soldiers. It is important for the reader of this story to have a historical knowledge about the Vietnam War to fully grasp the specific thoughts, feelings and experiences of the soldiers. The United States involvement has purpose but the soldiers did not always understand or feel it. Also the actual brutalities of war were not portrayed due to the soldier’s lighthearted views. The reader does not fully discern O’Brien’s exposure of the truth behind the firsthand experiences of the Vietnam War without having some historical context about the War itself.
