Almost instantly after the United States won World War Two, they had to worry about the spread of communism into other parts of the world. The view point of the U.S was that the spread of communism by the U.S.S.R and other countries would endanger their capitalistic society. This war may have been on the of the hated in American history. People didn’t understand why they decided to be in the war in the first place. Some of the main concerns that the American citizens had was that it was not their problem because Vietnam becoming a communist country would have no direct effect on the U.S for a long time. The other big reason so many people were against the war was because it costs so much money to be a part of. By the end of the war it was estimated the United States could have spent up to 900 billion dollars because of the war, which includes veterans benefits after the fact. That amount of money dramatically increased the debt that the United States had and took money away from programs that needed it on a domestic level. The people in the United States felt as though that the government wasn’t acting in their best interests and protests started popping up all around the country. This anger felt by the American people boiled over into hate of the people fighting in the war and veterans, upon return to the U.S were hated as if they were an extension of the government. People went so far as to spit on them and egg their houses.  Tim O’Brien, in the short story “The Things They Carried”, gives insight into the war and what it was like to be there. O’Brien highlights the fact that death is random and the war took a great mental toll out of anyone who fought in it. The Vietnam war was a war that the United States should have never gotten into. It cost more money than we should have spent, caused mental damage to those who fought, and caused veterans to be mistreated upon coming home from the war. 

Depending on the situation, a war can either be beneficial or detrimental to a society. In World War Two so many men had to go off and fight in a war the Women could enter the work force in factories created a change in gender norms that helped the economy in the long run. In the case of the Vietnam war, the economy took a turn for the worst. The war took up so many resources that different factories that usually made goods for the public were forced to make military products. This caused a major slowdown in spending by the average American and negatively affected the economy. So much of the government’s spending started going overseas which created a deficit in the countries budget and was the cause of a lot of debt. At the time the average American consumer started to feel as though that the government was so focused on something that was so far away that their personal interests and way of life were being overshadowed by a questionable war. As the U.S dollar weakened and the market started to get more and more imbalanced, U.S citizens started to get more and more anti-war, which would cause a lot of problems for veterans who were soon to return. 

Meatal strength or courage has nothing to do with the chances that someone will get PTSD. Per a study done by the U.S Department of Veteran Affairs, around “seven percent of females and 11 percent of males who were in the Vietnam War now suffer from PTSD” (PTSD and the Vietnam War). The government sent so many young people into such a harmful environment and it had and still has a lasting effect even decades after the war had ended. People who are trained as doctors and engineers were in the front line of the war putting their life on the line while they kept seeing death all around them. In the study, it said that people with PTSD were twice as likely to die since the end of the war. People did not understand the full effects of PTSD and how it can send someone down such a dark path. It is a huge reason as to why there is such a high rate of suicide among veterans. Underlying the physical things that the people in O’Brien’s short story carried, they also had so much emotional and mental baggage due to the war. Everyday being around death, and sometimes it appears it was so meaningless. Other things such as leaving family and being away from home must have taken a huge toll on every person involved in the war. What made the veterans even more mentally and emotionally drained was how citizens were treating them when they got home.

The treatment of the veterans coming home from the war was very brutal. Walking down the street they would be spit on and their houses would have eggs thrown all over them.  People view the soldiers as an extension of the government and saw them as reasons to why the economy was so bad. Outlandish misjudgments about soldiers such as thinking of them as psychos swept across the nation and put them in a bad light. Every day the media and places like Hollywood and the movie industry fed off the anger of the people and made media that went against the returning soldiers. Even though Hollywood had been behind the previous wars the U.S were a part in, they wanted nothing to do with this war, “Not to be outdone by the protesters and howling mobs wandering aimlessly in the streets, the entertainment industry lost no time getting into the act.” (Coming Home: A Contrast of the Vietnam War). Veterans were harassed and run over by all aspects of the political and entertainment world.

When Tim O’Brien wrote “The Things They Carried” not only did he talk about the physical toll hat soldiers encountered but the mental and emotional strain of being is such a nasty war when the people back home in your country hate you. They carried a rift between the government and the people that made them question everything. They carried the memories and thoughts of what happened every day, they are trapped inside their heads. They carried the experience of fighting in a war that no one wanted, putting their lives on the line for a seemingly meaningless purpose. They carried so much that every day they will psychically, mentally, and emotionally drained.
