A heavy downpour of rain streams across the swampy, war torn backs of weary, hunger ridden men fighting every second of every day for their country, their fellow man, and themselves. Lively smiles and hopeful conversations of loved ones back home are limited and clouded by the unfortunate task at hand. The Vietnam War, which lasted twenty gruesome years from 1954 to 1975, tested the heart, mind, and soul of every man involved. South Vietnam took arms against North Vietnam in hopes to reassemble a divided nation that was being taken over by communist rule. Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon led The United States of America in aiding the South Vietnamese army in hopes to cut off the spread of communism and satisfy the interests of the country’s allies. Such involvement was extremely controversial due to high level of american casualties, Operation Rolling Thunder napalm bombings, the draft, and overall unnecessary interference. Inexperienced eighteen year old boys were tasked with carrying and operating heavy weaponry, grasping for survival, and living in day to day fear of the unknown. Ron Kovic’s autobiography Born on the Fourth of July and Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried provided readers with a deeply personal glance at the life of Vietnam soldiers who endured suffering both during the war, and long after they return. During a time period of uncertainty and division, soldiers enduring the severe torment of war were subject to immense physical and mental hardship. Furthermore, the lack of medical development, perceived reputation of Vietnam Veterans, and turmoil amongst the American people directly led to the tremendous numbers and effect of PTSD among returning soldiers.

William Schlenger and Nida Corry team up and address the emotional damage longevity that a significant number of Vietnam Veteran soldiers still endure today in their article, "Four Decades Later: Vietnam Veterans and PTSD". Post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD is an illness that encompasses someone who experienced a traumatic event and continues to relive the feelings of terror for short and long periods of time following the experience. Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried provides a glimpse of the pain soldiers go through in the experience of Lieutenant Cross, who just endured the death of a colleague. Cross is described as going through “Deep hurt. I mean that crying jag; it wasn’t fake or anything, it was real heavy-duty hurt” (O’Brien 336). The National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS) conducted an in depth survey analyzing the mental health conditions of Vietnam Veterans forty years after the war and the results are gripping. As Kovic returns home to chaos, he witnesses “the living deaths I am smelling now, the living deaths, the bodies broken in the same war that I have come from” (Kovik 72). As of 2012-13, approximately 283,000 Veterans still experience warzone PTSD. Eighty-three thousand more soldiers report having subthreshold warzone PTSD, a step below the DSM-5 criteria. Thirteen percent of the 283,000 Veterans with PTSD in 2012-13 also admitted having steadily increasing symptom levels. Many victims of PTSD struggled with substance abuse issues and depression as well. Schlenger and Corry’s findings were released in hope to bring light towards public health issues and help serve the needs of younger patients currently diagnosed with warzone PTSD from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The research conducted and exposed by Schlenger and Corry strongly correlates with O’brien’s depiction of soldier’s mental state while enduring real life war zone responsibilities.

The issue of PTSD among soldiers returning home from war, reinforced in Schlenger and Corry’s article, is further displayed as readers can see mental problems again developing within Lieutenant Cross and other soldiers in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, leader of his platoon, is portrayed fighting with his fellow soldiers in the Vietnam war. Every soldier carries, or “humps” as they called it, a scattered collection of objects that held a significant degree of importance to them to escape from wartime anguish. O’Brien mentions soldiers carrying dope, diaries, comic books, condoms, and Bibles. Lieutenant Cross carries letters from his girl of attraction back in the states, Martha. He constantly wrestles with whether she is a virgin or not, and replays simple memories over and over in his head such as touching her left knee (O’Brien 336). These explicit details and obsessions within the thoughts of the Lieutenant show the immense mental strain of war. In order to cope with the unfortunate reality, soldiers are forced to occupy their minds with other thoughts. However, Lieutenant Cross’s infatuation with Martha left him off guard one day leading to the death of his friend, Tim Lavender. Cross claimed full responsibility and completely erased Martha from his thoughts. This experience haunts Cross for the rest of his life. Readers truly get the sense that war is just as mentally demanding as it is physically demanding. During the time of the Vietnam war, technology and medical development was far inferior to the resources available nowadays. This historical context helps readers understand why soldiers used small objects as mental escapes. They did not have phones, or access to the outside world. War, and its darkness, consumed them. After reading O’Brien’s excerpt, one is able to understand, as much as a bystander can, the horror these men went through and still others continue to going through.

When the United States of America finally pulled military personnel out of Vietnam in 1973, the return to America was far from glamorous. In Ron Kovic’s autobiography Born on the Fourth of July, readers feel a true sense of what Vietnam veterans, especially the wounded, go through when they return home from war. He was obedient and fought hard, however after experiencing real life wartime terror he returned home paralyzed from the waist down and emotionally distraught. Kovic now advocates for anti-war policies and peaceful means of negotiation. The fear of being killed in battle that plagued the minds of soldiers now shifted to the dangerous thought that there was no reason to be alive anyway. Tim O’Brien explains the thoughts of traumatized soldiers, “Squeeze a trigger… they imagined it. They imagined the quick, sweet pain… and they dreamed of freedom birds” (O’Brien 339). These times of panic cause soldiers to go crazy and become depressed. After being poorly treated by medical personnel back in the United States, Kovic repeatedly says the words, “I just want to be treated like a human being” (Kovic 58). During the time of the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement swept the nation. Martin Luther King Jr. was leading the charge and fighting for fair treatment of African Americans. This fight had many ups and downs and left the american people divided for a long time, and arguably has never fully been resolved. Such a movement further increased the unsettling environment for returning soldiers. The controversies of Vietnam war crimes combined with the fight for equality served as a bridge between mentally worn veterans and experiences of post traumatic stress.

The anguish of war takes a severe mental toll on the minds of soldiers. American soldiers put their lives on the line to serve and protect the freedoms everyone so passionately loves. Furthermore, these men deserve the utmost respect of all americans. Contributing to the emotional and physical recovery of such men is only fair. O’Brien explains the inner conscious of a soldier as “the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture” (Things They Carried 77). The lack of medical development, perceived reputation of Vietnam Veterans, and turmoil amongst the American people during the mid to late 1900’s played an extensive role in the influx of returning soldiers with PTSD. 
