The five stages of grief and loss are denial, anger bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Although humans do not necessarily experience all of these symptoms in order or in completion, the stages of grief are universal. However, extreme circumstances can alter one’s ability to experience these stages. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a disease that often results in the inability of a person to experience grief in a conventional way. Post-traumatic stress disorder is defined by the National Institute of Mental Health as “a disorder that develops in some people who have experienced a shocking, scary, or dangerous event” (NIMH).  PTSD is a serious disease which has detrimental effects on a person’s mental capabilities in many different ways. War veterans are common victims of PTSD based on the violent conditions and sights that they experience on a daily basis. Tim O’Brien documents the experiences of a group of soldiers in the Vietnam War in his short story The Things They Carried. By looking at how the soldiers respond to the many instances of death, in the excerpt from The Things They Carried, we can see the ways in which victims of post-traumatic stress disorder become numb to the importance of human life, which is not obvious to most readers. This is important because emotional detachment regarding death, a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, illustrates the way that post-traumatic stress disorder affects and will continue to affect the Vietnam soldiers’ concept of human life.

The soldiers exhibit emotional detachment regarding death when their fellow soldier and friend, Ted Lavender, is shot. Although the men had grown close during the war, they are prevented from being able to mourn in conventional ways, or what some may call “properly”, by the mental toll that is taken by experiencing combat. After witnessing Lavender’s death, the soldier Kiowa describes the event as being “like watching a rock fall, or a big sandbag or something – just boom, then down” (O’Brien 330). Kiowa compares his friend, a human being, to two different inanimate objects, a rock and a sandbag. The comparison that he makes takes all of the emotion out of the death and looks at it as an ordinary routine. Referring to the murder of a close friend in terms of only the sounds that his body made while the events were transpiring is a way of distancing himself from the situation. This numbness in regards to the loss of a human life is a result of the post-traumatic stress disorder that affects each soldier. 

Vietnam veterans with PTSD are described as “suffering from disturbances in self-identity characterized by alienation from the civilian community and adopting a survivalist mentality” (Glover). This “survivalist mentality” that is adopted by the soldiers causes them to dehumanize the victims of the war. In order to survive in extreme situations, one must numb themselves to human emotions that could cause vulnerability or weakness. The soldiers resort to this mechanism in order to best cope with the trauma that is so prevalent around them. The emotionally distant mentality alienates the soldiers from the rest of civilization because they have had such rare experiences that could not possibly be understood by an outsider. Watching a friend die, being separated from loved ones, and participating in the destruction or human civilization are occurrences that are impossible to be taken lightly. These experiences cause the characters to act in ways that would seem disrespectful and cold to outsiders, but attest to the way they distance themselves from the traumatizing events.

Another instance in which the soldiers exhibit emotional detachment in regards to Ted Lavender’s death is seen in the ways that they individually cope with the experience. Many of them resort to joking about the murder of their friend, which further emphasizes the warped perception that the soldiers have developed regarding human life and its value. The men find humor in Lavender’s death, making clever comments about the fact that he was shot after using the bathroom such as “offed, lit up, zapped while zipping” (O’Brien 338).  These jokes that the soldiers make among themselves are coping mechanisms that are a result of the PTSD from which they suffer. The inability to respond to death in a way that exhibits emotion is a result of the extreme amount of suffering that they not only witness but also experience during the war. They treat death during the war as if it is part of a script, fall into robotic reactions, and even go as far as to “destroy the reality of death itself” (O’Brien 338). Refusing to accept the finality of death is a way that the soldiers try to prevent themselves from becoming vulnerable in their situation. They live in fear every day so they must eventually become numb to all emotion as a form of self-preservation. Research shows that “as fear develops after a single brief aversive encounter in a dose-dependent manner, it persists over time and is accompanied by symptoms of emotional blunting and social withdrawal” (Siegmund). Therefore, the fear itself never goes away, even after the war is over. The feelings will just get stronger, and new mental symptoms will arise. After the soldiers become accustomed tothis desensitized nature, it is almost impossible to revert back to normal, which is why so many veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder during the rest of their lives.

The emotional detachment as a result of PTSD is also seen through the carelessness that the men exhibit throughout the events of the war. This attitude is exemplified through certain objects that the soldiers carry with them. It is also evident during the battles of the war. One of the soldiers, Norman Bowker, carries a human thumb with him as a good luck charm. This thumb is cut off of the dead body of a boy that is found in a ditch, and is given to Bowker as a gift from another soldier. The fact that a human body part is removed, given as a gift, and carried around in the pocket of a man only further emphasizes the lack of an emotional response to death that the soldiers portray. When one of the men, Mitchell Sanders, cuts off the dead boy’s thumb, he is described as “smiling…he kicked the boy’s head, watched the flies scatter” (O’Brien 334). The neglect with which the body is treated is yet another example of the mental effects that the events of the war have on the soldiers. This carelessness with respect to devaluing human life is apparent during the raids of the villages as well. The men attack the villages, “not knowing what to look for, not caring…frisking children and old men, blowing tunnels, sometimes setting fires and sometimes not…” (O’Brien 335). These attacks become such a routine to the soldiers during the war that the violence and damage that they cause does not affect them. They do not give a second thought to the lives and homes that they are destroying, exemplifying the emotional detachment has become their default setting. This disregard for human life will persist in the soldiers’ thoughts and actions throughout the remainder of the war, and will stay with them during their post-war life as well.

A Vietnam veteran’s concept of human life is severely altered as a result of the extreme, fear-inducing, experiences into which they are immerged for such a long period of time. This mental alteration can be referred to as emotional detachment, and is a common symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder. In Tim O’Brien’s, The Things They Carried, the emotional detachment, specifically in instances of death, is apparent. The withdrawal is exemplified through the thoughts, actions, and reactions of the group of soldiers that is depicted throughout the story. As these men face the pain and hardships that come with fighting in the Vietnam War, they already begin to display symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Their numbness to the importance of human life grows stronger and stronger. They become desensitized to what is considered normal human emotion, and they act in ways that almost seem cold-hearted to the average, mentally stable person. A human’s response to death, especially that of a loved one, is a very complicated matter. However, most humans follow some sort of pattern that is at least somewhat related to the five stages of grief. Victims of PTSD are separated from the rest of society through the ways in which they mourn. Due to their emotional detachment, the soldiers in The Things They Carried are not able to grieve the death of their friend, their casualties, and their victims in ways to which readers can relate. Their abilities are altered by the severe circumstances in which they are forced to live, or simply function. The emotional detachment, and overall post-traumatic stress disorder, that each soldier develops and portrays during the Vietnam War will persist throughout their lives, even after they are removed from the harsh environment. 
