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.  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. The reader benefits from historical knowledge of the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War because this awareness gives them a better understanding of why the soldiers fighting felt as though their presence was not necessary. The historical context helps the reader fully grasp and fully empathize with the events occurring throughout this story by highlighting the conflicting interests of the United State’s government and the soldiers present, which the reader would not be aware of just by reading the soldier’s narrative.

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. “There was at least the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry,” (336) including: ammunition, weapons, medical supplies, and backpacks. Although the soldiers did not always understand the purpose of these objects or their presence in Vietnam, they always knew their country would provide them with supplies and support. The United States supported their troops because they wanted to stop the communist aggression present in North Vietnam. Clark Dougan evaluates the United States’ government’s purpose in Vietnam when he quotes President Johnson: “‘our strength imposes on us an obligation to assure that this type of aggression does not succeed’” (31). The strong desire to stop this oppression is what fuels the United States to keep their men well supplied, like suggested by O’Brien. However, even though the soldiers were well supplied, they still had a feeling of purposelessness. In contrast, the United States government felt that they had a necessary purpose to be fighting the northern communist oppressors. The reader can better understand these two contrasting feelings from background knowledge about the soldiers’ perspectives and the United States’ government’s desire to accomplish their goal of stopping the spread of communism.

The soldiers experienced an overall feeling of purposelessness during the Vietnam War. The United States wished to end the Vietnam War, 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 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 public opinion of the United States’ involvement in the war as he quotes the South Vietnamese ambassador to the U.S. revealing how there was “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 United States’ soldiers’ feelings described in this story when O’Brien reveals how “they marched for the sake of the march” “no volition, no will, because it was automatic” (335). The reader understands the concerns of the soldiers while reading O’Brien’s story, but they better understand these concerns, such as meaninglessness missions, when they have an in depth historical knowledge about how soldiers had little desire and purpose for this War.

Many of the missions carried out by the United States’ soldiers were unnecessary and non purposeful. 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 this village was to overcome his guilt he felt towards his responsibility of his men’s death. This reveals how not all missions were planned and necessary, which asserts that the soldiers had no purpose. This feeling of having no purpose made them act out based on the thought that they needed to be doing something or their presence would be even more pointless. 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 to soldiers due to the need to feel some purpose in their presence. Dougan describes one of these efforts when he mentions American soldiers burning homes of villagers that were supporting communism in attempt to discourage their support (111). The historical information about unplanned missions helps the reader fully grasp the soldiers’ feelings of aimlessness.

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 soldiers’ “raw fear of the unknown” (60), 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. The soldiers’ execution of these brutal missions caused them to question their need to be this brutal in the first place, which added to their feeling of purposelessness. This understanding of the brutally of the war and the fear it caused gives the reader an insight on the horrors the soldier’s experienced which furthered their feelings of pointlessness.

During this war, the soldiers believed that the deaths around them were happening for no purposeful reasons. 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 because they feel that their fellow soldier’s death had no purpose. 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. The brutality of these deaths and their seeming pointlessness only made the deaths more traumatic. This story uses euphemisms to avoid the true horrors of death because the soldiers felt that the deaths that occurred did not need to occur. 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 to ignore the purposelessness of fellow soldiers’ deaths.

The Things They Carried, 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 to understand the United States’ different opinions of the Vietnam War and its horrors to fully understand the soldiers’ feelings of purposeless present throughout the story and throughout the War itself. The United States involvement had purpose but the soldiers did not always understand or feel it. The actual brutalities of war only increased the soldiers’ feelings of purposelessness, causing them to act out irrationally in missions and to speak about the horrors lightheartedly. Without a historical knowledge, the reader would not be able to understand the reasons why the soldiers’ felt as though their presence had no purpose, which could cause the reader to interpret the soldiers’ as lazy rather than apprehensive about their presence in Vietnam. History therefor adds certain analyses that readers would not understand or misconstrue otherwise.
