Beau Largent

10 April 16

Phillips

English 101-022

The Man I Killed

One of the worst effects of war besides the loss of lives and the destruction of the land is the soldiers' return and struggle to fit in to society after they have had to live through such difficult experiences. After the Vietnam War, people were able to really see and understand the devastating effects on the returning soldiers due to the length and brutality of the war. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien shows the mental struggle the soldiers had as a result of the violence and brutal killing and maiming they saw. Whether it was a comrade, or an enemy Vietcong soldier, or even civilians in the war zone, the effects of seeing fellow humans in such a mutilated state deeply affected the psyches of the American soldiers. 

Historical events have made it clear that war is never easy and can lead to homelessness, drug addiction, and severe mental and emotional problems. The Things They Carried describes the experiences of foot soldiers in Vietnam during and after that tragic war. Because the book is based on soldiers' experiences during the War, it is only fitting to give some background on the conflict and what transpired because of it. The Vietnam War lasted from 1957 until 1975, with approximately 2,700,000 Americans serving on active duty (National Coalition). This was the first war in which America failed to meet its objectives and especially failed as a nation to honor the veterans returning home, refusing to call them heroes and treating them with the respect and understanding they had earned and deserved. 

Readjusting into society with physical, mental and emotional health issues were only some examples of the types of issues veterans were dealing with. According to the Veteran's Administration America's homeless veterans have served in World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), Operation Iraqi Freedom and the wars in South America (National Coalition). 47% of our current homeless population served in the Vietnam War. "During World War 1, soldiers returning home who had trouble acclimating to civilian life were determined to have "shell shock" (Ritchie 11). Soldiers who returned disturbed from World War II were deemed to have something "not yet diagnosed, nervous (battle fatigue)."  

O'Brien covers various aspects of war differently then normal war writers; he doesn't write about large battles in first person, but instead gives a flashback-type point of view. He looks closely at the physical and emotional experiences the soldiers are dealing with. And he gives you an idea of how it really was, recounting the daily struggles the soldiers had with their comrades during the time between the battles and killings. "How To Tell a True War Story" recounts O'Brien's recollection of the death of one of his comrades. It tells the story of this event three times throughout the chapter, giving the reader a different perspective on the story each time. He also relates a story told by a comrade of his, where the comrade admits to embellishing parts of the story, but still gets the basic points across. Then O'Brien explains that the problem isn't about telling a true war story, it is about telling a true war story and getting it to affect the person reading it. 

O'Brien's "How To Tell a True War Story" shows the effects of post traumatic stress disorder on soldiers trying to integrate back into society through his storyteller/soldier point of view, and really brings home the fact that not all war stories are about actual battles, but are also about the insanity that comes with the evil of war. 

The rapport O'Brien develops as a storyteller and a soldier play against each other, a technique that adds emotional complexity and allows the storyteller to shape and make more realistic the way the audience experiences the story. He describes the things his soldiers carry. Physical things, like machine guns, soap, and comic books, which help the reader feel what the soldiers are doing and experiencing, and sometimes tells us something about the soldier himself. 

He also intentionally mixes fictional and real events in his storytelling, such as when he speaks about lying when relating war stories to make them seem more real to the average human. A rather unusual technique but helps push the dramatic themes he writing about. He provides a darker view of the soldier's experience, giving feeling to what the soldiers deal with as they come back and their struggles with PTSD. O'Brien's stories delve  into the minds of soldiers giving the readers a sense of blurred lines between truth and their imaginary creations. 

 His storyteller/soldier point of view is clearly shown in one story about the death of a soldier named Curt Lemon, told from three different perspectives. At first, O'Brien poetically describes Lemon's death as an almost surreal and beautiful experience. He explains, " ... when he died it was almost beautiful, the way the sunlight came around him and lifted him up and sucked him high into a tree full of moss and vines and white blossoms" (O'Brien 2). In the way O'Brien, the storyteller paints this death, he is giving us the watered-down view, showing us how the soldiers wanted to remember Lemon's death on that sunny day. Another version, a soldier's side of the story, is almost emotionless; it tells us Lemon's best friend's reaction to the death, quickly explaining how, "Lemon stepped on a booby-trapped 105 round ...  then he was dead" (O'Brien 6). But it also goes into depth about how Rat, Lemon's best friend, takes his anger out on a baby water buffalo. The author focuses on what war does to a normally good man, turning him into an animal as he shoots the water buffalo as a way of taking his pain out on another being, but no matter how many bullets he puts into the animal, does not go down. The normal societal rules are insignificant in war; the world does not work the way it is supposed to; though Rat turns to brutal anger, the water buffalo does not die. O'Brien's last view of Lemon's death is gruesome; it attacks the reader will all the disgusting details. After Lemon's body is exploded up into the tree, Tim is, "ordered to shinny up and peel him off. I remember the white bone of an arm. I remember pieces of skin and something wet and yellow that must've been the intestines" (O'Brien 8).  This version illustrates the gory side of war; it gives us a sense of the trauma the soldiers would have endured after going through that experience. 

O'Brien's contrasting story moods are what war is about; war is not supposed to make sense. Events have different interpretations depending on the person. It can be seen as beautiful, depressing, or gruesome. There is something about war that breaks normal barriers. War can't reduced to a simple specific theme, it's indistinct and far too complex; whether it is the bond a soldier forms with his fallen comrade that leads to a story of friendship or the heartfelt letter to the fallen comrade's sister who does not respond that results anger and disillusionment. O'Brien illustrates this through his recollection with a woman who enjoys his story though she usually cannot stand war stories, as she does not understand the interest in violence. O'Brien expresses his disgust in the women, as he explains to us, "It wasn't a war story. It was a love story. It was a ghost story" (O'Brien 10). 

 Evil is the biggest component of war as expressed by O'Brien.  He recounts the story one of his comrades, Sanders, tells him. According to Sanders, six men on a listening operation, were staying in the mountains waiting to hear approaching enemies. They had been up there for a few weeks when they started to hear "gook" rock music almost as though it was coming through a rock.  Apparently, they decide to ignore it as if it isn't a serious threat they should call in. As time goes by the sounds multiply, they begin to hear voices, chambers, and choirs.  One day it becomes too much, "The guys can't cope. They lose it" (O'Brien 4). They call in the firepower saying there is a whole army in the area, and the mountain gets bombed all night. There is no longer any sound, but they still hear it. The sounds stay with them, just as other traumatic experiences stayed with many soldiers after the Vietnam War. 

O'Brien paints a picture of the lasting effects the Vietnam War left on American culture and the PTSD that has changed so many soldiers lives. It was because of Vietnam that the diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, was coined. Re-integrating back into society after being deployed demands a lot of work of the soldier and his or her family.

War is cruel, dangerous and traumatizing. The difficult transition from military to civilian life challenges many veterans returning home and some can't meet that challenge. This was a problem with our Vietnam Veterans and we should probably expect some of the same issues with the many Veterans who've returned from wars in the Middle East.  This has led to many cultural and societal difficulties and Veterans are more at risk of becoming homeless compared to normal citizens. The main causes of homelessness among veterans include lack of income due to limited education and skills; combat related physical injuries, mental health issues, substance abuse problems and weak social skills for adjusting to civilian life (National Coalition).  According to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, the nation's homeless population as of 2014 is approximately 22.5 million (National Coalition).  

Unfortunately, the average person cannot even begin to grasp a combat soldier's emotional problems; most civilians think of war in a one-dimensional way, if at all. It makes relating to society extra difficult for these soldiers who sometimes end up failing in society. Tim O'Brien's account of the Vietnam War is different from so many others who have written about the war, because he basically ignores the emotional political debate that raged in the United States at the time. Instead, he concentrates on the personal and emotional problems they faced during their service and after they returned. We see how the horrors of war witnessed while they were deployed stripped away their innocence. 

The Things They Carried demonstrates the life and challenges soldiers faced and illustrates how their different experiences affected their views about the ambiguous realities of war, and the physical and emotional baggage soldiers carried back from the conflict. Nightmares of gruesome attacks and killings replaying in their heads night after night. Anger, and feeling nervous, helpless and fearful became their reality. The length of the war, the brutality, the large numbers of dead and wounded, and the great divisions about the war were some of the main reasons the Vietnam War had such a long lasting impact on our society.  

Like O'Brien's characters, soldiers returning home felt a huge amount of guilt because they lost so many of their comrades in war that so many Americans questioned. Feeling misunderstood, and unworthy of life and what it had to offer, their attempts to re-acclimate themselves to the "normal" lives they had left behind became almost impossible, and the horrible treatment the returning veterans experienced only amplified their guilt. O'Brien's characters returning from war experienced many of the same emotions felt throughout our history of conflicts. As the Vietnam War was such a violent war that divided the country and could hardly be looked at as a victory, its veterans had to deal with both of those realities and it was too much for some of them. 

Work Cited

O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Broadway, 1998. Print.

Morin, Rich. "The Difficult Transition from Military to Civilian Life." Pew Research Centers Social Demographic Trends Project RSS. N.p., 08 Dec. 2011. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.

"Homeless Veterans." National Coalition for the Homeless. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.

"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder." NIMH RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.
