War has always been a part of human existence, an inevitable and always looming fact of life. Wartime conditions have always been stressful and standing armies must be prepared and always on their toes for attacks. Marching armies endless press on knowing that some of them will not march back and that the horrible chaos of battle leaves more than just physical scars. Unfortunately, most causality reports focus on physical wounds as opposed to mental wounds. Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is a novel with autobiographical aspects from O’Brien’s own time in Vietnam. The main character is Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, who leads a small platoon of soldiers as they fight their way through Vietnam. Cross’ description of his wartime experience connects war to mental illness, particularly PTSD.   

The Vietnam War was a terrible and bloody war and a black stain on American history. Thousands of people were maimed or killed; to be more precise, fifty-eight thousand killed, two thousand captured, and three hundred fifty thousand maimed or wounded. Many people today are still effected by what was ultimately a pointless war. The war was pointless politically, militarily and economically and wasted American time, money and lives. It was a war that was openly protested for its uselessness and unending nature. Imagine that you just graduated high school and are then shipped off to a jungle halfway across the world, fighting an enemy that could be anywhere and anyone. You face near constant stress and you see horrible things. Then you return home to a public who hates you and sees you as a murderer. You are forced to integrate back into this society that now hates you and without the adequate training and education to get a job. There is no one you can talk to about what happened, not even your family. This is exactly what happened to veterans of the Vietnam War. Vietnam was a different kind of war. Other wars such as the World Wars had clear enemies and the soldiers met on battlefields. The men trying to kill you would be wearing a specific uniform and you would be justified in killing them first. The enemy in Vietnam could have been anyone, children and women would walk up to American soldiers with a grenade under their shirts. This led to very stressful situations and near constant paranoia which contributes to mental instability. (Hochgesang, Lawyer, and Stevenson).

Drug and alcohol use was common amongst American soldiers serving in Vietnam for several reasons. Firstly, those substances were easy to acquire overseas and secondly it would help the soldier forget some of the terrible things they saw while fighting. During the beginning of the war, marijuana was the most popular drug in use but once word had gotten back to the American government that it’s soldiers were smoking weed they cracked down on the use of the drug, which sent many soldiers to harder drugs such as opiates and heroine to their escape. This led to drug dependence and once they came home the drugs were much more expensive and harder to obtain. Some returning veterans were too young to even buy alcohol. This drug addiction and dependency led to veterans having a much harder time readjusting to civilian life, which led to increased stress on their psyche (Hochgesang, Lawyer, and Stevenson).

PTSD was referred to Post-Vietnam Syndrome during that time and PTSD wasn’t an official term until 1980 when it was listed under an anxiety disorder. Post-Vietnam Syndrome’s symptoms included combat related nightmares, alcohol/drug dependence, anxiety, depression, anger, and poor responsiveness. Unfortunately, many victims of PTSD were not able to receive adequate treatment because the symptoms of PTSD often do not present themselves until more than a year after returning from overseas, and the government’s policy of the time stated that they would only cover the expenses of treatment if the symptoms presented themselves up to six months after the victim’s return home. This policy lead to veterans feeling extreme anger and mistrust for government officials and politicians, who they felt did not care about them and did not appreciate their sacrifice (Begg).  

The Things They Carried is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Tim O’Brien. The novel details what life was like for a soldier during the Vietnam War and the excerpt included in The Carolina Reader for English 101 focuses heavily on the weight of the items they had to carry with them during their service. Details such as the exact weight of their boots, clothes, weapons, ammunition, rations, and personal items. The inclusion of these extreme details is a metaphor for the physiological weight every man had to carry with them, only that they didn’t get to shed that weight once they stopped to rest. The narrator also describes his obsession with a woman he was romantically involved with back in the US. He cannot stop thinking about her, and he knows that she doesn’t share the feelings he has for her but he dreams anyway. This is a metaphor for the way in which victims of PTSD cannot seem to truly ever leave what happened to them behind. They obsess over it and it gets in the way of their everyday lives, just like when Lavender gets shot while walking back from urinating. At the time Jimmy Cross was daydreaming about Martha and he blames himself for what happened. After that he decides he will shape up his unit and try to make sure he does not lose anyone else. Further detailing the horrible things that soldiers had to do during the conflict, the narrator describes how one of his men cuts the thumb off a dead Vietnamese soldier, a boy he describes as being around fifteen years old, and gifts it to another soldier. This is included to show that the soldiers had to desensitize themselves to stay alive. They could not view the enemy as a child or a mother, they had to view them as an enemy. By cutting off the boys them they show that he is somehow less than human and that he isn’t worthy of the respect of a proper burial. It makes it easier to kill a child with a grenade in his hand if you see them as less than human. This mindset is clearly not healthy and leads to an unhealthy mind (O’Brien).

In conclusion, mental health treatment during the Vietnam War was not sufficient to treat the veterans of that war. That included with the animosity of veterans of the Vietnam War in America lead to veterans not being able to share their experiences and talk about their feelings, which led to many developing what we call today as PTSD. The disorder led to many veterans not being able to integrate back into civilian life, which is a problem we still face today.
