The Vietnam War took a toll on America and the American solders who fought in it. These men were forced to see some of the worst combat on the planet and deal with some of the toughest situations. Stress was constant and fear was always seared into their minds. Many of these men were not even soldiers but just normal people drafted to fight in the war. Men who were civilians no longer than a few months ago now have been rapidly transformed into soldiers for the U.S. Army. This only heightened the fear and stress that these men had to deal with every single day. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien centers around an American soldier named Jimmy Cross. He was a First Lieutenant in the Army during the war in Vietnam. The novel focuses on the objects the soldiers carry both physically and emotionally and how that affects them during the war. The history of the Vietnam War surrounding the horror and how brutal and gruesome it was helps shape the text and influences how the characters behave. 

The Vietnam war was very violent and contained many high stress and traumatizing events. These events affected each soldier differently and some more than others. In the novel, each man goes through different experiences, some more traumatic than others. These traumatic experiences directly relate to a soldiers mental state and how bad or “traumatic” the event was correlates with how bad their PTSD is, if they even have it at all (The Combat Exposure Scale: A Systematic Assessment of Trauma in the Vietnam War). One of the tasks that the men often had to complete was the clearing of tunnels that were made by the vietnamese. This entailed one man, not big in size, to crawl into the tunnels with a pistol and flash light to make sure no one was inside. When this was completed, the rest of the team would blow up the maze of tunnels, and move on to the next. This was exactly the case in the novel by O’Brien. Due to the danger and fear that came with this job, all of the men resented it and drew numbers to determine who would have to carry it out. Whoever drew the number 17 would have to strip off his gear and enter the tunnel. This is what happened to soldier Lee Strunk. He explains how stressful and scary doing this task is and how “you find yourself worrying about odd things: Will your flashlight go dead? Do rats carry rabies?” (O’Brien). Knowing about PTSD and how certain types of combat exposure can contribute to varying cases of this disorder helps the reader understand how this type of mission can affect their mental state.

While soldiers are at war, the combat exposure that they have also has an affect on their mental state. Similarly to trauma, these combat exposures also have different levels of severity. The various exposure can contribute to a soldier and their PTSD after the war is over. The large number of veterans of the Vietnam War that have some sort of PTSD sheds light on how brutal and horrible the war was. These soldiers had to see some of the most horrific acts and watch their friends and fellow men die beside them. Their PTSD and the severity to which they have the disorder is determined by the Guttman Scale which is based off the soldiers combat exposure and how traumatizing or severe their exposure was (The Combat Exposure Scale: A Systematic Assessment of Trauma in the Vietnam War). In The Things They Carried, O’Brien describes a chilling seen where the soldiers are forced to fall to the ground, shooting their guns blindly at the enemy while moaning in panic and fear. This is the type of combat exposure that left many veterans broken and with post traumatic stress. The type of times where soldiers are on the ground, “sobbing and begging for the noise to stop, and making stupid promises to themselves and to god and to their mothers and fathers, hoping not to die” (O’Brien) explain the problems they later develop. This violent reputation of Vietnam and the issues the soldiers came home with play a key role in the authors creation of the novel. It influences what the characters go through and how they cope with the horror they witness. The way the characters cry and scream and beg are all characteristic of the happenings during the war.

The brutality of the war and the very grueling nature of it also influences the novel. Vietnam has a bad reputation for violence not only in the war itself but also from American soldiers toward the vietnamese people. They often killed unarmed civilians including women and children. They caused destruction and set fires to many of the villages they came across. Baby killers was what some thought of American soldiers back home in the states (Not a Gentleman’s War: An Inside View of Junior Officers in the Vietnam War). They also thought of the enemy as inhuman. They thought of them as animals rather than people and often treated them like so. This is touched upon in the novel when Mitchell Sanders, a soldier in the army, found a dead Vietcong soldier at the bottom of an irrigation ditch. He went up to the man who was more like a young boy and “patted the stomach, almost affectionately, and used Kiowa’s hunting hatchet to remove the thumb” (O’Brien). Here you can see the lack of emotion and feeling that some of the soldiers have towards their enemy. The boy is dehumanized and treated like nothing more than an animal. His thumb is cut off and used as a lucky token. No respect is given. Following the retrieval of the thumb, Sanders, “smiling, kicked the boys head and watched the flies scatter” (O’Brien). This further shows the lack of compassion the men had for the vietcong. These types of behaviors were prominent during the war and in turn influenced the novel. Events like the one written about by O’Brien actually occurred and are portrayed in his novel.

With the violence and death that surrounds the Vietnam War, sadness and pain accompany them. During the conflict, vicious and deadly fighting led to a high casualty count for not only the vietcong, but also the Americans. This high death count affects not only the families at home who now lost a brother or a son or a father, but also the men themselves. Many lost best friends or even family in the war and often times it occurred right by their side. The non wounded men would then have to scramble to help their wounded friends and comrades. This was no easy task considering on many occasions these actions had to be carried out under enemy fire (Not a Gentleman’s War: An Inside View of Junior Officers in the Vietnam War). A sample of this tragic situation of friends dying next to friends is touched upon in the novel. Soldier Tim Lavender was shot in the head and killed during one of the teams missions. The men described his death as quick and painless. They said he fell like cement, down without a word. The men made small jokes about his death to try and cope. This doesn't always work, however, which is apparent when some of the guys kept talking about Lavenders death. After repeatedly talking about how he died, like cement, Jimmy Cross had had enough. His emotions took over and he said, “I heard, man. Cement. So why not shut the fuck up?” (O’Brien). This is a perfect example of some of the emotions you feel when put in that situation. Loosing men and friends besides you was the nature of the beast and that aspect appears in the novel.

Many of the aspects of the war and its affects are reflected throughout the novel. The trauma and pain that all of the brave men that fought in the war had to deal with had many negative affects on them and their lives. O’Brien’s novel is greatly influenced by this and also the brutal and vicious nature of the war. Historical knowledge and cultural contexts are used in a successful way to create a well written and accurate novel of the time.
