Tim Obrien’s things they carried is a look into the stress of the Vietnam war, not only on a physical level but also the mental difficulties the soldiers experienced. Most people understand the difficulties of war, but little get how Vietnam hurt the veterans that fought in it. This war was more gruesome than some of the other famous wars throughout history, and it had an impact on the soldiers who fought in it. The war itself was brutal soldiers having to walk miles each day through a thick jungle, while carrying more than 50 pounds of equipment all the time. Lots of disease from the jungle and exposure to the elements was just as hard on the soldiers as the fighting was. War is the most difficult thing for a human to experience, and has had an everlasting negative effect on the soldier, their families, and American society who fought in it.     

War is such a problem in the world, and always has been. Soldiers are the bravest people in the world for the atrocities they experience. If you haven’t experienced it first-hand it is difficult to understand how bad it is and how much of an affect it has on soldiers and their family. The united states military preaches unity to its newly initiated members. They teach the very much true lesson that you must work together to accomplish your goal, because alone you will fail. This strategy has been very successful of bringing together one of the strongest bonds in the world with US veterans. This bond has brought a lot of success to the troops, but also brings out one of the hardships of war. The troops are so strongly connected with each other through the suffering they have endured together but have to live with the fact that some of the will probably die. This is one of the hardest mental battles soldiers face. They have grown so close to their troop members that they have become their best friends. They are in a deadly situation and when one of the soldiers get killed the unity of the group makes it harder on the fallen soldier’s comrades because they were so close to them. “236,000 veterans currently have PTSD from the Vietnam war” (vermetten) A large deal of stress is put on a person when a close person to them dies. US soldiers are just as close to each other as any other group. When one dies it affects the others in a major way. The amount of deaths in this war had a large impact on the amount of soldiers with PTSD. The unity makes the US military better but it also gives even more stress to the brain of soldiers when their brother or sister of combat dies.       

The soldiers were permanently affected from this war, and have been impaired the rest of their lives. After the war the soldiers were not treated the same as they are from modern days. When soldiers come home from the middle east and other overseas battles now they are in the states for up to two months before they are released completely. They take this time to decompress the soldiers from the things they saw in battle. Also the civilian people back in the united states reacted very differently to the soldiers than people do now. Vietnam was a very controversial war, and many people were against it. There was such little support the government had to use a draft to complete the amount of soldiers needed to fight. Which caused many of the soldiers to be fighting for a cause they don’t even believe in, which lowered moral and made the war more difficult in general. But nice they got home the people acted very cruelty them. Often spitting and cursing them it was a very rude way to be welcomed back after risking their lives for the country. This caused more distress with the soldiers making them even more mentally scared. War is a horrifying thing that has been shown to be not as bad as it is in pop culture movies and other forms of entertainment. When in reality it is very scaring to the warriors who experience it, and if not handled properly can cause many problems to the soldier. Like during the Vietnam war the soldiers were sent strait home after battle and had no time to readjust to normal civilian life. Which cause a higher rate of PTSD than other wars. Many of the veterans have been effected deeply and near readjusted to regular life back home. I had become so common again being taken lightly by Hollywood by the crazy homeless Vietnam vet being a common character in movies. Everyone has seen the character often in a small part shown as the old crazy mam living on the streets. When this is truly a real problem in the country.  The war has caused many veterans to be mentally scared to a point where they can’t rejoin society to a normal standard. 

The Vietnam war changed many of its veteran’s post war lives and their relationship with their loved ones. War time is very difficult for soldiers. Contrary to popular belief soldiers are the group of people who want war the least. Every time there is a war many people across the country petition for peace and sometimes attack the soldiers fighting for them. But the soldiers don’t want war and more than these people do. The soldiers are the ones who have to risk their lives for the very people that are attacking them. Soldiers hope there is no war so they can stay at home and be with their loved ones. War causes them to be away from home for an extended period of time. In the Vietnam war the soldiers were away for up to a year at a time. Besides the hardships of actual battle, the soldiers had to deal with the emotional pain of being away from home. During Vietnam lots of the missions included walking long distances to get to objectives, which gave the soldiers some time to think. When the soldiers had wives or people they were close to the would obviously spend a great deal of their time thinking about them. During the hardest parts of the war, like battle and seeing your friends die, the soldiers loved ones are always on the back of his mind. This was a good and bad thing for them. During the war it gave them a little bit of peace in the chaos, it could comfort them to think about their family to help get them through the hard times. But then after the war it could bring some problems along with it. “combat experiences, measured by the CES, demonstrated significant correlations with the variables measuring abusive violence and Vietnam veterans” (Hendrixs pg 87). when the soldiers got back from the war they saw some things that were hard to forget. And during these horrible times they were thinking about their family. With the stress from the war many of the soldiers developed PTSD and could have sudden and violet flashbacks to their time in battle. Sense the soldiers often thought about their families while seeing these hard things, when they would see those people again it could trigger something in their brain and make them rethink about the war. This could deeply affect many families. When the veteran snapped back into the war flashback they would get violent and sometimes strike their loved ones. Before the war this would never happen but know that the family is associated to the war in the solders mind they have problem now. The difficulties of the war were not left in foreign soils but brought back and continue to create problems with soldiers on the Homefront.    

 Vietnam was a different war for the US troops. They were faced with one of the most grueling battles, having to trek through miles of untouched jungle facing the harsh elements of the foreign land. If not dyeing or getting injured in battle soldiers often fell to the unforgiving touch of mother nature. But this was hardly the worst fight the soldier had to go through. The mental battle of this war was much worse than the nearly impossible physical struggle the soldier had to go through. This war caused harm on a deep level to the prisoners called US troops of this war, and caged them with years of mental damage and attempted recovery when they returned to the states. Some have not yet recovered and are still struggling to recover from this detrimental experience.    
