The period between the 1960’s and early 1970’s was full of turmoil and chaos for the United States due to many factors. Within the country, the civil rights movement was taking place, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and there were protests all over the country. Many of these protests were for the war unfolding in Vietnam as many men were drafted into a brutal war thousands of miles away. These young men, typically in their late teens or early twenties, were put into difficult situations and saw events and images that most people cannot imagine seeing. On the home front, civilians saw mainly the negatives of the war and believed it was unnecessary so they began to blame the soldiers when they would return home. Unfortunately, this caused a lack of support for the soldiers returning leading to an incredible amount of young men with PTSD and a country who hated the men who fought for them.

In the excerpt from The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, Vietnam is described by details of how U.S. soldiers from one platoon saw the war. All war is brutal but most everyday people are not sure of just how terrible it is. However, the stories within O’Brien’s excerpt are able to show some of the images many veterans have burned into their memory. The difficulty of carrying equipment in war is described in the excerpt by listing the numerous weapons, gear, food, and equipment the soldiers have to carry as well as the weight of these objects that constantly add up to heavier weights. The physical weight the soldiers had to carry through injury and danger was one of the least worries of the young men. They carried much more in their minds that they could never get rid of. 

After the war, there were over 800,000 veterans who saw combat in the Vietnam War, many of these people being young men torn away from home. Constance L. Shehan states “It is estimated that 20% of all Vietnam era combat veterans are formally diagnosable, but that 50% show signs of troubling, unresolved war experiences” (Shehan 55). Tim O’Brien is able to portray through his story certain events that are stuck in certain soldier’s minds. When Ted Lavender was killed, the whole platoon was in shock that he was shot in the head while doing the simple, everyday task of going to the bathroom. This event stuck mostly in Kiowa’s mind as he was there to see it happen. Kiowa repeatedly describes the event to other soldiers including Norman Bowker. It was described as “Like cement, Kiowa whispered in the dark. I swear to God-boom, down. Not a word.” And later in the conversation Kiowa exclaims “Yeah, but you had to see it, the guy just—” (O’Brien 336). The image of Lavender being shot is burned into the mind of Kiowa. Kiowa is shocked enough in the moment that he does not seem emotional, but instead compares Ted’s body to cement and is in awe of what happened to the point where he tells people they had to see it. This scene relates to Shehan’s statement of unresolved war experiences due to the scene being so clear in Kiowa’s head that he will never get over it. He will be forever unable to resolve the event of the body falling to the ground like cement without being able to do anything about it. 

In his piece, Shehan talks about the ways different soldiers in Vietnam acquired PTSD during the war. He states, “The soldier is faced with destruction and disruption—defoliated land, burned buildings, and corpses” (Shehan 66). O’Brien makes sure to talk about all types of burnings and corpses that were seen by the men of just one single platoon in Vietnam. After Lavender was killed, O’Brien talks about what was done to the village of Than Khe by Lieutenant Cross and his men. O’Brien proclaims, “They burned everything. They shot chickens and dogs, they trashed the village well, they called in artillery and watched the wreckage, then they marched for severaly hours through the hot afternoon” (O’Brien 336).  The men in the platoon were doing traumatic things that at the time may have been just out of anger but after looking back at the events, many innocent people’s lives were ruined. It was not just the platoon described by O’Brien that committed these acts, but soldiers all around the country during the war were destroying villages and mascaraing civilians. Events like these are some of the leading causes to PTSD during the Vietnam War because when soldiers returned home, many returned to families. When soldiers are put back in the civilian world with people who love them, they realize the burnings only ruined families that are similar to those in the United States, causing the men to have constant stress about the traumatic acts they committed. 

War changes people forever. This is greatly because of the experiences the soldiers endure at such a young age. Most men who fight are college age kids in charge of defending an entire country. For that reason, Shehan says, “Individuals in combat experience a profound sense of loss—of lives and of youth and innocence. Third, the soldier feels a sense of helplessness” (Shehan 56). O’Brien is able to clearly show a kid transform into a man as he loses his innocence and youth. When O’Brien is talking of Lieutenant Cross at the beginning, he says, “He was aware of how quiet the day was, the sullen paddies, yet he could not bring himself to worry about matters of security. He was beyond that. He was just a kid at war, in love. He was twenty-four years old. He couldn’t help it” (O’Brien 334). Lieutenant Cross clearly went into the war as an average kid who was probably dragged into the war by the draft, shown by his attachment to home and the love he cannot let go of. However, the excerpt by O’Brien shows a full transformation from innocence to war focused Lieutenant. O’Brien talks about the death of Ted Lavender and how his death is what took away Lieutenant Cross’ innocence and youth because he feels like he could have done something to prevent his death but was too busy focusing on Martha from back home. So after Lavenders death, “First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross crouched at the bottom of his foxhole and burned Martha’s letters. Then he burned the two photographs” (O’Brien 340).  This was when Jimmy made the transformation from a kid to a soldier. He threw out his love connection to home and changed his ways of leading his men. For a 24-year-old kid at war to throw away his dream-girl, it takes a lot of effort and shows that they are capable of being a mature leader on the battlefield. They are willing to become a man risking their life while many 24 year olds are fresh out of college with very little real world experience. War is an experience many people cannot deal with and it clearly stripped Lieutenant Cross and many others of their youth and innocence by making them numb to the world back home. 

In the book “Culture and PTSD: Trauma in Global and Historical Perspective”, by Byron J. Good, he makes the point that “Since the 1970s, the terms trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder (or PTSD), and trauma treatment have become so much a part of everyday language in the United States that they seem to most Americans to name natural realities” (3). The 1970’s was the end of the Vietnam War era, and the nation had many young men returning home from a war the country had been involved with for about a decade. These young men had seen and done acts that individuals on the homeland could never imagine. O’Brien talks about many of these acts like cutting off peoples thumbs for good luck, and killing people. However, upon return home these soldiers did not have anybody to help them deal with the stress they had endured during the war. Many doctors at the time did not know what was wrong, but eventually their disorder became known as PTSD. The problem with PTSD being such a large part of American society since the Vietnam War is the United States has not done enough to deal with the problem. PTSD is stuck in American society due to constant war and lack of treatment and support for the troops like helping them get jobs and education.

The Vietnam War was a terrible time for the country. People at home constantly worried about their friends at war or protested the wars ending for years. Soldiers in Vietnam had an experience like no other people in the country have had before. The war they fought was a constant mind game of guessing who the enemy was, and therefore the soldiers minds became altered. These young men returned much differently from when they originally left the country.
