“Frag out!” Pure carnage has occurred in the jungles of Vietnam, 18 year olds wreathing in pain, screaming for their mothers, as they suffer from life ending wounds. This can be a common occurrence in the life of a United States Marine. Some of the atrocities that are seen are too horrible to ever forget and those seeing them can often times be unable to lose the images.  Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)is a mental disease, which can affect anywhere from 60-83% of soldiers.  PTSD was first discovered during the first world war and was initially called “shell shocked”.  The soldiers would return home and have noticeable changes in their everyday body movements, such as when they were walking they looked as if they were walking into a 100 mile an hour wind, or they would sway left and right.  These symptoms raised concerns and prompted neurologist to start researching the problems the soldiers were bringing home with them. In the short story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross was still struggling with PTSD, twenty years after returning home from Vietnam. Lieutenant Cross blamed himself for the death of one of his fellow soldiers, Ted Lavender.  Cross was distracting himself from the battle, thinking about a girl, Martha, he briefly dated in college and believes that Ted’s death was due to his own misconduct.  This caused Cross to enter into a deep depression and become mentally isolated from the platoon.  Cross copes with the loss of his platoon member by focusing on the life he plans to build with Martha, even though her feelings for him were never reciprocated.  This shows how PTSD has destroyed Cross both emotionally and physically. 

 The screaming of the wounded soldiers in battle pushes some of the soldiers into a state of shock, with them not being able to perceive what is happening around them.   While others are able to process what they have seen and move on.  However, the majority cannot recuperate and do not know how to deal with what they have seen and what is often accompanied with a powerful loss.  Some smoke weed, others get drunk, but one, Lieutenant Cross, isolates himself from everyone and has his mind focused on suicide.  This type of behavior is also commonly seen with NFL athletes that have suffered concussions and traumatic brain injuries.  From a neurologist’s perspective, the traumatic events a soldier goes through cause similar symptoms to the impact a former football player with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) shows and how destructive it is to the brain.  CTE is a brain disease that is caused from continuous blunt trauma to the head for a prolonged period of time, or from suffering numerous concussions.  Retired NFL players, have brought this condition into the forefront of the media today from the death of, most notably, former Pittsburgh Steeler Center Mike Webster and San Diego Charger and New England Patriot Junior Seau, who both took their life from this awful disease. The reason that the symptoms of veterans and retired NFL players closely mirror one another is because of the effects PTSD and CTE play on the brain. This is best illustrated in the novel League of Denia by Mark Fainaru-Wara which, gives an in depth analysis how the concussions have a negative impact on the brain and provides the struggles Mike Webster faced during his fight with CTE.   From reading the short story and researching PTSD’s affect on the brain, it became quite obvious that Cross and Webster had very similar symptoms, but with two very different injuries.  The symptoms included depression, loss of memory, disgruntle personality and fear.  The main difference between the two diseases, became evident by Cross being able to continue to somewhat function day to day and Webster’s being unable to handle the pressure of day to day living, eventually killing himself.

 Cross had to reevaluate his life and the amount of time he spent focusing on his fictional life with Martha, while an entire platoon full of soldiers relied on him for their well-being. As shown in the text, “He felt shame. He hated himself.  He loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead” (O’Brien 336). Cross enters the deep depression of his revival here.  He knows that he messed up badly and has to figure out a way to put his love interest into perspective.  Cross’s depression continued, but it was more for Martha than Ted, as the text states.  “All he could was dig. He was entrenching tools like an ax, slashing, feeling both love and hate… he was grieving for Ted Lavender, but mostly it was for Martha” (O’Brien 336).  Cross’s obsession with Martha consumed him and he needed to work through his obsession and into a new life.  He knows that he cannot be with her, but refuses to admit it.  Cross has been through so much with his men but still feels that Martha is more important to him than his “brothers”.  This shows how much of his mind is consumed by Martha and how irrational that seems to an observer.  If cross wants to grow and be a better, he is going to have to overcome this obsession and get his life back in order. 

Isolated from life, the soldier stares blanking into the sky, not knowing what to do.  He looks around aimlessly asking God to give him some help.  He has reevaluated his life and knows he has to change, but he cannot come to terms with his decision. He finally steps up and does something that he should have done a long time ago.  He opens up.  Granted, talking will not get solve all of his problem, but it surely will help him in his greatest time of need.  Everyone, during their time at war, has something that they need to overcome. Lt. Cross was able to overcome this huge moment, when he decided and was able to destroy all of the things that relate to Martha.  One of the hardest things in life to accomplish, is to get over a get a significant other that does not love you back. The audience is able to see this with Cross and Martha, as the more in depth O’Brien gets into Cross’s obsession with Martha, the greater the rift there is between them.  Luckily for Cross’s sake, he finally realized that this fantasy was just that, and it would not be coming to fruition, he was able to finally put his men in front of his feelings.  As stated in the text “First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross crouched to the bottom of the foxhole and burned Martha’s letters. Then he burned the two photographs” (O’Brien 340).  Cross has finally overcame his biggest obstacle in his life and something that has eaten away at his brain for such a long time.  An unrequited love from a far is not something that should be weighing constantly on a man overseas, fighting for the United States and for his own life.  Everything is meant to happen for a reason and maybe Ted Lavender dying, as selfish as that sounds, was Gods way of allowing Cross to finally reevaluate the choices he has made and get his life in order for once and for all. 

 Every soldier must undergo hardships during their time at war; some soldiers are able to process the events and move on with their lives, while others cannot seem to even make an attempt to attack the problem.  People do not know what life is truly like when one suffers with PTSD, which is one of the biggest reasons that suicide is so high for those who suffer this dreadful disease.   By analyzing how Cross copes with the loss of a member of the platoon, falling into deep thought of not Ted, but rather the fantasy of what he wants his life with Martha to be, even though she has not reciprocated his feelings, shows how he is not based in reality and how PTSD has destroyed Cross both emotionally and physically. 