During the Vietnam War, soldiers experienced many unspeakable things. The war was brutal and a lot of the soldiers who returned home were not the same. This is because they developed post-traumatic stress disorder. Throughout Tim Obrien’s The Things They Carried, the characters show symptoms of PTSD and how the war affects them emotionally and mentally.

In The Things They Carried, the soldiers are put under a lot of emotional pressure. Throughout the whole book the things that the soldiers actually carry and the things they metaphorically carry is mentioned quite frequently. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is in love with a woman named Martha, but he had to leave to fight in the Vietnam War. Being ripped away from loved ones puts a person through emotional stress and can add to the events that cause PTSD. Martha is mentioned a lot throughout the excerpt, and it is almost a tease to Jimmy. He receives a pebble and he loved the gesture, but knowing that the woman he loves is somewhere else adds another thing on to the things he carries. He metaphorically carries the stress of not knowing what Martha decides to do with her life once he went off to war. For Jimmy Cross the only thing that keeps him sane is Martha’s life. When he thinks about her, he goes back to before he had to leave for the war. Towards the end of the story Jimmy Cross ends up hating Martha and not wanting anything to do with her. Tim O’Brien does this to show how Jimmy Cross’ mental state develops through the story. He started the war loving and being obsessed with Martha. He then experiences war and is almost not capable of showing love or compassion.

Another character in The Things They Carried who tries to hold onto his old life is Kiowa. The one thing he physically carries is a version of the New Testament Bible. He decided that even though he has all of his equipment to carry that the Bible will help him through the Vietnam War. He tries to stay with his faith during the story even though he was ripped from his home and sent to the war to fight and experience the worst thing a person could possibly experience. His bible is the one thing that could help him through all of the ambushes and sleepless. Towards the end of the story after Ted Lavender dies Kiowa feels no emotion. “He wished he could find some great sadness, or even anger.” (O’Brien 337). His mental state is ruined by the war in the sense where he could not even have emotions.  These little things that the soldiers carry help them try to stay sane during this emotional warfare. Even though they hold onto these things it is not enough to prevent them from developing PTSD.

In Freidman’s article “Understanding PTSD” the main purpose is to explain what Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is to the reader. It talks about men and women who say they are changed after they retire or leave the military. This relates to the characters in The Things They Carried because they all show signs of anxiety or mental distress. Throughout the story there mental stability seems to worsen every time something detrimental happens. These soldiers experience a lot of mental and emotional stress during the war, and return home as a different person. Friedman states that “The number of American soldiers with emotional symptoms and invisible wounds is anyone's guess- perhaps 500,000 or more.” (8). This statistic is displayed throughout the characters in Tim Obrien’s book. Friedman also goes on to explain that people were first diagnosed with PTSD after the Vietnam War (1). It took society that long to realize that people coming home from the war were mentally unstable. In The Things They Carried, the characters progression to this illness is tracked throughout. There was no way that they were going to be able to return home after the war and be normal again. 

Friedman also argues that war veterans are more likely to commit suicide, be unemployed, or even be homeless (9). The treatment of the soldiers from the Vietnam War is very important, and Friedman argues that when soldiers come home from war, it should be a priority to make sure they are mentally and emotionally stable. This is necessary so they can go to work and return to regular living conditions. The author also states that people need to be researching PTSD more, so that the victims of this mental illness can be cared for in a new way. This would happen by new innovative thinking and researching PTSD, because it has only been a diagnosis since the Vietnam War. The characters of The Things They Carried are people who fall under this category would need to get special treatment for this. They are the first soldiers who would be treated for PTSD because that was the time people realized soldiers were returning home from the war in a toxic mental state. Tim O’Brien shows that the characters develop PTSD throughout by talking about how the characters feel when certain events happen.

In the article "Who Develops Post Traumatic Stress Disorder", Emily Ozer discusses who develops post-traumatic stress disorder in this article and to no surprise, war veteran are mentioned throughout. This article focuses on who develops post-traumatic stress disorder and the characters of The Things They Carried fall right into this category. They are constantly in an emotional and mental warfare with themselves throughout the story. In Ozer’s article the statistic of Vietnam War veterans who developed PTSD is given. The numbers showed that twenty six percent of females and thirty one percent of men in the Vietnam War developed post-traumatic stress disorder. The article also states that 830,000 Vietnam veterans were still unstable twenty years after service. This means that the characters that made it out alive after the war was over will carry their mental struggles long after. Ozer also explains the biology behind it all. Researchers focus on how PTSD victim’s brains react to the events they are put through. They focus on the emotional parts of the brain, and also the parts responsible for the fight or flight response. War veterans are more likely to develop PTSD due to the emotional trauma that they go through during war.

In The Things They Carried, the soldiers have to carry around huge killing machines. They have to be ready to go to war at any second. This means risking their lives to kill others too. Killing a person or watching one of your fellow soldiers die is emotionally stressful, and that will lead to a person to develop PTSD. These men walk around patty fields not knowing if they are going to die or not. Lavender is one of the soldiers they watched die. His body is taken by a helicopter right in front of their eyes. Lieutenant cross took this to heart. He took his men and trashed a whole village and destroyed everything in his way. He did not take his friend’s death lightly. He went crazy and started to dig a hole because he was so upset. He was showing signs of early PTSD, and many of these men in this story left the war emotionally stressed and as a whole new person.

These characters in The Things They Carried experience the Vietnam War in such a way that is detrimental to their mental health. It is very apparent that the events such as Ted Lavender’s death affect the soldiers in a very negative way. They are experiencing symptoms of emotional distress first handedly and will later go on to have post-traumatic stress disorder when they return home, if they return home. This story focuses on the emotional stand point of the things the soldiers carry, and it is very apparent that post-traumatic stress diorder will be another addition to that list too.
