In “The Things They Carried” the author writes in a sporadic, descriptive way to show that he suffers from PTSD from traumatic events during the Vietnam war.  PTSD is also known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  The various symptoms of PTSD are; emotional stress, emotional numbness, not wanting to hear memories of the event, re-experiencing the event, and increased arousal.  A person’s response to the re-experiencing of an event can result in “fear, helplessness, or horror” (McBride, 1995).  Many Vietnam soldiers claim to have “lost their soul in Vietnam”, because they feel the traumatic event changed their mind along with their life.   The authors various and unique writing style comes from the multiple symptoms that Tim O’Brien experiences from PTSD.   

In the story, Tim O’Brien writes through the physical and emotional battles each soldier experiences.  He heavily outlines Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, as himself, when he was in the war. Throughout the text, the author lists exactly what each soldier was carrying, along with how much each item weighed.  The author does this to show how the war consists of emotional and physical weight.  The emotional weight is from the various memories that each soldier carries from the deaths of their fellow soldiers. This is a common symptom of PTSD.  The physical weight is from the actual gear and supplies they were carrying.  In the text, the soldiers received gear very frequently, so they were able to get rid of some of the heavy gear each day.  This correlates with the emotional weight, because the soldiers cannot get rid of the horrible memories at the end of the day.  No matter what happens, the soldiers are stuck with these horrid memories and deaths of fellow soldiers for the rest of their life.  This constant emotional stress leads to the author having a saddened tone throughout the text.  The tone is expressed through various words such as; wept, pain, begged, grief, and deep hurt.  It feels like the emotional sadness builds up throughout the text because the author experiences even more traumatic events as the story takes shape.  The saddened tone allows the reader to feel the emotional battles that are being conveyed throughout the text.  Tim O’Brien constantly talks about the terrible memory of his fellow soldier, Ted Lavenders death.  After Ted Lavender was shot, the author referred to Jimmy Cross (himself) by saying, “and yet when he closed his eyes, all he could think was Boom-down”.  This shows how Jimmy Cross is in absolute turmoil from the death of Ted Lavender.  He can’t even fall asleep without dreaming about the event because his PTSD is so severe.

Tim O’Brien shows how traumatic events in the war can lead to emotional numbness and attitude change. During the beginning of the story, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross would carry letters from a girl named Martha, who he was in love with.  He would have romantic dreams and thoughts about Martha that were very positive.  Lieutenant Cross began to feel emotional pain during the days to come because he witnessed his friend get shot.  Jimmy Cross felt that Ted Lavenders death was his fault because he loved Martha too much and couldn’t stop thinking about her long enough to save Ted.  PTSD begins to effect Jimmy Cross after this event because he starts to become emotionally numb due to the tragic event.  Even though Teds’ death was not his fault, he feels that it actually was.  The story goes on and Lieutenant Cross still feels hatred and shame because he loved Martha more than his men.  This is the point in the story where Tim O’Brien outlines how severe the PTSD is becoming because he is now having trouble handling his relationship with Martha.  Tim O’Brien transfers the neutral tone into a dark, numbing tone.  He describes Lieutenant Cross’ escalating PTSD symptoms through the change from love to hatred of Martha.  He begins to have a hard, hatred kind of love for Martha because PTSD is slowly numbing his mind and emotions.  He begins to burn all the photographs of her in attempt to burn the blame, but PTSD makes all of the blame and memories stay inside of his head.  In the article, Van der Kolk states that “many traumatized people cannot handle intimate relationships and cannot give trust” (1995).  Tim O’Brien explained Jimmy Cross’ relationship with Martha as it changes from love to hate to show that symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder effected his life.

In the story, Tim O’Brien uses omniscient dialogue from many of the characters.  The omniscient dialogue is used to show the thoughts and attitudes of each soldier.  The different dialogue from each soldiers is a great way to show the severity of each soldiers PTSD.  According to Lynn August, PTSD can cause “severe startle reactions” (1987).  These severe startle reactions can happen from someone bringing up the traumatic event.  After the death of Ted Lavender, Kiowa began to talk about the incident to Norman Bowker. Kiowa said, “yeah, but you had to see it, the guy just-”, and Norman Bowker responded with, “I heard man. Cement. So why not shut the fuck up”.  Tim O’Brien used this dialogue in the text to show that many of the soldiers in Vietnam were effected by death.  The reader can now infer that Norman Bowker has PTSD he had a severe startle reaction when the death of Ted Lavender was brought up.  

The article suggests that, “As with Vietnam Veterans, severe depression, explosive and violent behaviors, somatic symptoms, recurrent nightmares, and intrusive thoughts are common symptoms of PTSD” (August, 1987).  These intrusive thoughts and nightmares of the effected soldiers are shown in the story many times.  Tim O’Brien does a great job by vividly describing the various nightmares that some soldiers had.  Tim O’Brien states, “there were times of panic, when they squealed or wanted to squeal but couldn’t, when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads…. Afterward, when the firing ended, they would blink and peep up”.  This outlines a regular dream that many men in the story would have due to PTSD.  Without knowing that soldiers in Vietnam suffer from PTSD, the reader wouldn’t know why the soldiers are having these bad dreams.  The mind is greatly altered when soldiers develop PTSD.  

Tim O’Brien does a great job of tying the condition of PTSD to the text without specifically stating that each soldier suffers from PTSD.  He does this efficiently through the use of dialogue, word choice, and writing structure.  Having background information about PTSD helps the reader understand the reason for the soldiers’ odd behavior.  The story also allows the reader to better understand the symptoms of PTSD by showing vivid examples of each soldiers PTSD problems.  The reader can conclude that the sporadic writing style of Tim O’Brien is greatly due to the personal effects he has had from PTSD.  
