For many Americans, the Vietnam War is a controversial and tough topic to talk about. Tim O’Brien brings to life the experiences of Alpha platoon during their tour of duty in Vietnam. O’Brien details individual soldiers in his platoon and what they carried with them while at war. As O’Brien details what his soldiers carried throughout the book it becomes evident that he (O’Brien) is not just speaking about what they carried in war, but what they will be carrying for the rest of their lives. The burden of war, the death they experienced, feeling unappreciated, and forgotten. Time after time in the book the death of Tom Lavender is brought back up. It would have no significance to the story being told, but it would continue to arise and it shows that though O’Brien gives details of what the men of Alpha platoon carried it more importantly speaks to what the men carried home from the war. The Vietnam War was the first American conflict that soldiers saw sustained combat for weeks and weeks on end, with that sustained combat came the psychological side effects. The invisible wounds and memories O’Brien and the men of alpha platoon carry will be with them for the rest of their lives. The importance of realizing this is to let you know that yes, the grenades, drugs, love letters, the canteens and jungle boots will all fade with time and just be things that young American men went to war with, but the real story of what those men carry will never leave them. It is who they are and who they will be for the rest of their lives. They are patriots, fighters, and above all else, survivors who carry with them the memories and scars of a place far away and time long ago.  

In reading “The Things They Carried,” you get an up close and personal description from O’Brien about what some of his time in Alpha platoon was like during his deployment to Vietnam. America’s intervention in Vietnam was started due to the American strategy at the time, which was to stop the rapid growth of communism. In 1949, communist rebels started a civil and won taking control of mainland China. After the fall of China, the U.S. began intervening in South Korea who was in a civil war with communist backed North Korea. The idea was to help the South Korean people fight for their freedom, but with China and the USSR backing the North Koreans they were just out matched and out gunned and this led to American ground troops entering the fight. Better known to Americans as the Korean War (1950-1953). In 1954, the former French colony, Vietnam, signed a treaty at Geneva Conference to separate communist North Vietnam from South Vietnam at the 17th parallel. With this treaty signed it created what the U.S. feared would be the “Domino Theory,” the fear that if one country was being influenced or fell to a communist government they would pressure neighboring countries to follow suit creating a falling domino effect. The escalation in Vietnam was just like that of Korea. The U.S. sent in military advisors to help support the local government fight off the communists, but in the end the strength of the U.S military was needed. In the early 1960’s the U.S. slowly continued escalating the troop strength in Vietnam and in 1964 after the Gulf of Tonkin incident the U.S. began again escalating troop strength and deploying regular U.S. combat missions in 1965. The war dragged on for years and the American public began tired of war, and seeing their young boys sent around the world to fight in a war that wasn’t there’s to fight. In 1973, U.S. direct military action ended and with that almost all American troops were deployed back to America and by 1975 the North Vietnamese took the capital city of Saigon marking the end of the conflict.  

The Vietnam War being as controversial as it was is something that must not easily be forgotten. Vietnam was the first American conflict where the soldiers returning were not respected by the majority or citizens. They were called baby killer’s, they were spit on and ostracized by many. The men returning home and trying to transition back to the civilian life did not have an easy journey. Many of the men returning home did not have the camaraderie that existed in the military, many found that they did not fit in with the average civilian, they were denied jobs for openly stating they had served in the war. This drove many vets, especially those who did have a strong family foundation to come home to, to drink heavily and do drugs to help themselves suppress their anger and resentment towards others. This cold and disrespectful homecoming created a group of young American vets, averaging ages of 17-23, that were unemployed, having only a high school education, and unable to talk about what they had went through while at war and a lack of feeling like they fit in with normal society again. All of these things only compounded the stress and pressure added to the soldiers returning home, which led to many of these vets falling into a downward spiral of isolation, excessive drinking and anger to name a few. We now know a great deal of these men suffered from a mental condition called PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a mental health condition that is trigged by seeing or experiencing a horrific event. Josh Hochgesang, Tracye Lawyer, Toby Stevenson documenting the effects of the Vietnam War on those who served and explained that, “Vietnam veterans who experience PTSD have a feeling of helplessness, worthlessness, dejection, anger, depression, insomnia, and a tendency to react to tense situations by using survival tactics.  Combat experience remains the variable most often linked to PTSD among Vietnam veterans.  The frequency of PTSD was a lot higher among those with high levels of exposure to combat compared to the noncombatants.  PTSD was not taken seriously until the 1980's when many Vietnam veterans were complaining of similar symptoms.  These symptoms had been noticed after previous wars but there were only a couple of cases” (Hochgesang Lawyer Stevenson, Psychological Effects of the Vietnam War). It is widely believed that the men who were in combat zones during the war were not given the time to digress and reflect with their buddies about what they had just experienced. With the innovation of air travel since Korea and WW2, the men could be in the fields hunting the Vietcong on Monday and by Thursday would be back in their hometown and moving on to the next chapter of their lives. This seems great in theory, getting out of a war and back home in days, men dreamed longed for this. What many did not realize is that once they were home, the war may have been over, but the memories weren’t. O’Brien, in “The Things They Carried,” shows that this is true for him and many other veterans of Vietnam, the memories of the war will never leave.

While the soldiers were off fighting their war it was evident that another was brewing back home. Vietnam was not a popular war and could even be seen as the most opposed war to date. When the war began a great deal of the American public supported the protection of South Vietnam from communist countries. What the American people were not willing to do was get in a prolonged ground war with no end in sight. On top of the growing public want for the war to continue in Vietnam there was an ever growing suspicion around the Johnson administration and if the war was just political.in 1971, Americans were all but over the war and wanted it to end immediately when the New York times was leaked classified documents in regards to certain events playing out in the Vietnam. The “Pentagon Papers” as they were referred to revealed to the public that government was not being truthful about the events of the war and there was even reason to believe that the bombing of American naval boats in the Gulf of Tonkin, which actually led to direct American action in the war, never actually happened. Citizens began to take out their frustration those who had served in the war. This animosity towards them was vile and undeserved. The men and woman did not start the war, they were just doing as they were told by their country. Doing what many of them would say, was their duty to protect their country just as their parents had done in prior wars.

The Vietnam era in American history is a tough time to reflect on, but it is one that we must in order to really understand the cultural impact that time period had on Americans and its service members. In “The Things They Carried,” by Tom O’Brien it is clear that his time in Vietnam will not be forgotten and that the war shaped who he would become in life. He gives examples throughout the book just detailing the things that some of his men in alpha platoon carried with them while at war. He does not judge or pick fun at what the men brought, but more importantly gives the details of why they carried what they did and by doing so he is keeping the memories of his time at war alive. For O’ Brien and the men of alpha platoon, the Vietnam era was the nicest to them. These were young men who were sent off by their country to fight in a war, many of them didn’t even know why. They did their jobs with bravery, but returned home to world that had changed. The culture in America had shifted. They citizens did not want the war and saw anyone who was a part of it as part of the problem. The soldiers coming home were no longer portrayed as heroes or given welcome home parades, but called baby killers and were spit on. This caused many veterans, many who had seen sustained combat for the entirety of their deployment to seclude themselves and try to deal with their horrors of war alone. The condition many suffered from was PTSD. The extreme stress and traumatic events of the war had taken its toll and with little to no support for those returning the men were left to self-medicating. “The Things They Carried,” shows how one man dealt with his memories of war and I think that is described in the title. By writing down and going through his memories of war O’ Brien is able to digress and deal with the memories, not try to push them aside or drink them down, but instead to project them. Telling the stories of the brave men he went to war with and keeping their memory alive by detailing the items the men carried. The America O’ Brien saw before the war compared the one he saw after was a 180. He used his experiences in war to write a book that helped him express the memories he had of his time in Vietnam. The culture that he came home to no doubt played a roll in his writing of the book and the style in which he used to show that the memory if his friends will never fade and that he will continue to use writing as his outlet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
