Nations may pay for the war, but soldiers pay the ultimate price, their lives. A soldier has to be willing to lose everything to gain freedom for others. Therefore a war is not fought by two nations, but rather than the millions of soldiers. With this comes great sacrifice and selflessness. In the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien three soldiers that stand to lose the most are Kiowa, Norman Bowker, and Jimmy Cross. The day Jimmy Cross decided not to take higher ground was the day Kiowa’s future disappeared. “Kiowa was gone. He was under the mud and water, folded in with the war…” (O’Brien, 155). Many soldiers in war may lose an extremity or get bumps and bruises, but Kiowa did not make it out so lucky. Lieutenant Cross got commands to take the route he knew was much …show more content…
riskier, the river banks. Which at the time had been flooded and what they called a “shit field”. It is stated that, “He should have moved to a higher ground for the night, should have radioed in false coordinates” (O’Brien 157). Calling in false coordinates is against the rules but in this case it would have been for the better. If only Cross had gone against the commands Kiowa would still be alive. A nation as a whole does not care if one soldier dies, all they care about is if they win. If the generals would have taken a minute to see that the river would have been flooded due to excessive amounts of rain, a family would have been spared terrible news, and a decent soldier would not of had to die. Unlike Kiowa, Jimmy Cross didn't lose his life, but lost some people close to him during the war. Being a Lieutenant could not have been easy. You are the person in charge of keeping everyone safe. As a Lieutenant you want every one of your men to return home. As expected it would be very difficult not to blame yourself for the deaths of your men. He took Kiowa's death particularly harder than the rest. “He felt sick about it. Standing in the deep waters of the field, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross began composing a letter to the kids father, not mentioning the shit field, just saying what a fine soldier Kiowa had been, what a fine human being, and how he was the kind of son that any father could be proud of forever” (O’Brien 157). He did not write to any other families, other than Kiowas. This shows us how he was more connected to him, faced much more guilt considering that if he would have made a call to go to higher ground and not tread through the muck he wouldn't have died. Along with Jimmy Cross and Kiowa, Norman Bowker stood to lose everything by joining the war.
He made it out of the war alive, but he said, “It's almost like I got killed over in Nam…”(O’Brien 150). No one at the time knew, but Norman showed signs of PTSD. A mental health condition that can develop after a traumatic experience such as war. When writing a letter to Tim O’Brien about how he was feeling the tone would jump from self-pity to anger to guilt, all signs of PTSD. During the time period of the Vietnam War and others before it, everyone thought you could just go back home and jump right back into a normal way of life. For Norman that was not the case. He wrote, “The thing is, there's no place to go. Not just in this lousy town. In general. My life, I mean” (O’Brien 150). Norman had lost his hope. As a result he took his own life. The war stripped him of who he was, who he used to be. In war you're used to thinking at any moment you could die. It had to be hard coming home and trying to relax. Not all men can just forget the draining and relentless circumstances they went through. Now all soldiers are required to get checked for signs of PTSD before being allowed to return
home. Furthermore, Jimmy Cross, Norman Bowker and Kiowa have all lost something due to war. Rather it be their lives or their sanity. In theory a war is technically fought by two nations, but people make up this nation. With no people there would be no war. Each and every soldier risks losing everything for you. Someone you may not even know is fighting to make the nation a better and safer place. Therefore a war is truly fought by its brave men and women. A nation may think winning is the most important but the lives of those fighting for the win is what really matters.
For Vietnam veterans, nothing could replenish the zest for life they had before the war. According to O'Brien's text, upon their arrival home the veterans imagine, even hallucinate, what things would have been like if they had not suffered through the war. Examples of such occurrences exist in the stories "Speaking of Courage" and "The Man I Killed." Norman Bowker in "Speaking of Courage" dreams and fancies of talking to his ex-girlfriend, now married to another guy, and of his dead childhood friend, Max Arnold. He lives out over and over his unfulfilled dream of having his Sally beside him and of having manly conversations with Max.
The novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is based in Vietnam during the Vietnam War in the 1950’s. Though most of the novel is just a flashback to the Vietnam War, there are some events that occur well after the war. Looking back at their place in time during the Vietnam War, Jimmy Cross and some of his old fellow war vets use some of the objects they carried with them in Vietnam to remember those events that caused their lives to drastically change. The most significant event that changed Jimmy Cross’ life was of watching fellow platoon member Ted Lavender die right next to him. Cross does not go a day in his life without blaming himself for Lavender’s death. Throughout the novel Jimmy is torn between the love of his life, Martha, who does not feel as affectionate towards Cross, and by his actions in the War. In the novel, the author/narrator Tim O’Brien is also a protagonist in the story. He is first presented as a nervous, young, soldier who is in the Alpha Platoon. Because of O’Brien being the author of the novel, he can strongly use imagery to his advantage when he writes of stories he confronted in his point of view. The two main topics of current war and PTSD which are illustrated in the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien can be compared and contrasted with three relevant articles: “Al Qaeda tries to recruit Americans in Syria,” “Ukraine orders Crimea troop withdrawal as Russia seizes naval base,’ and “Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
The death of Kiowa is the point in this story, and arguably the entire novel, where the true nature of war becomes evident. His death in any situation would have been tragic, and camping in that “shit field” alone would have been an emotionally scarring experience; however, that these events had to coincide in time only multiplies the gravity of the situation. Interestingly, every soldier has his own way of grappling with such overwhelming feelings of grief for his highly-esteemed comrade. Yet what every man has in common is that in the end he concludes that he alone is the one ultimately responsible for Kiowa’s death.
The novel, “The Things They Carried”, is about the experiences of Tim O’Brian and his fellow platoon members during their time fighting in the Vietnam War. They face much adversity that can only be encountered in the horrors of fighting a war. The men experience death of friends, civilians, enemies and at points loss of their rationale. In turn, the soldiers use a spectrum of methods to cope with the hardships of war, dark humor, daydreaming, and violent actions all allow an escape from the horrors of Vietnam that they experience most days.
... Tim O’Brien turned from a scholarly student with manners to a cold bully and Norman Bowker could not even grasp returning to his old life and had to end his altogether. The absence of morality in war can change a man to mimic the war itself, and in the current wars America is involved in, the same disillusionment is occurring. People both at home and involved in the war are losing their sense of patriotism because they cannot back a war they do not truly understand. When reading O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”, readers should take a step towards an understanding that war without purpose does nothing but ruin the credibility of the country as well as the mental stability of all of those involved.
For example Sgt. Collier told Norman, “I started this war killing Germans in Africa then France then Belgium now I’m killing Germans in Germany, it will end soon, but before that a lot more people got to die,” as he stared into a burning city. It is very easy to tell they’re getting tired of war and killing people, as for Norman he finally starts to develop the character he needs to be in war. This is a very good turning point in the movie, it makes his character more mature and therefore it is easier to connect with us. Thanks to his maturity, he starts making the right decisions under pressure. It makes us wonder if he will actually step up to the plate, or if he will just break apart any
The Vietnam War caused many U.S. soldiers to develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, so when is the war over, is it really over? For soldiers with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD, the war may not ever be over. Doctors are on the peak of finding treatments for the ones affected by PTSD and how to prevent it from occurring or even helping them to recover from PTSD has major affects on Vietnam soldiers, their family members and today’s society.
Trauma can be defined as something that repeats itself. In The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, trauma recurs in soldiers for different reasons. However, although their reasons for trauma are different, the things they carried can symbolize all the emotions and pasts of these soldiers. One man may suffer trauma from looking through letters and photographs of an old lover, while another man could feel trauma just from memories of the past. The word “carried” is used repeatedly throughout The Things They Carried. Derived from the Latin word “quadrare,” meaning “suitable,” O’Brien uses the word “carried” not to simply state what the men were carrying, but to give us insight into each soldiers’ emotions and character, his past, and his present.
James was a Marine right out of his second tour of Iraq, during which he faced a bloody
Kiowa feels guilt and feels like he took something from his more than his life. He stood over the man’s body and imagined what he was really wanting to do than fight a war. Kiowa thought, “He was not a fighter. His health was poor, his body small and frail. He liked books. He wanted someday to be a teacher of mathematics.” This quote proves that Kiowa feels guilt over the killing of the soldier because he dreamt of his life outside of the war and he just stands over the body. The other soldiers try to get him to realize, the Vietnamese soldier knew he was going to die as soon as he picked up his gun. It takes Kiowa hours to come to terms with
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is when an individual has difficulty recovering from a traumatic event. PTSD is common in The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien. because it took place during the Vietnam war. We can recognize a few characters from the story that have PTSD are the following: Mary Anne, Dave Jensen and Norman Bowker.
The impact of the Vietnam War upon the soldiers who fought there was huge. The experience forever changed how they would think and act for the rest of their lives. One of the main reasons for this was there was little to no understanding by the soldiers as to why they were fighting this war. They felt they were killing innocent people, farmers, poor hard working people, women, and children were among their victims. Many of the returning soldiers could not fall back in to their old life styles. First they felt guilt for surviving many of their brothers in arms. Second they were haunted by the atrocities of war. Some soldiers could not go back to the mental state of peacetime. Then there were soldiers Tim O’Brien meant while in the war that he wrote the book “The Things They Carried,” that showed how important the role of story telling was to soldiers. The role of stories was important because it gave them an outlet and that outlet was needed both inside and outside the war in order to keep their metal state in check.
Fear plays a very large part of life, and when faced with high risk situations it makes a mountain out of a molehill. The Things They Carried is a series of vignettes written by Tim O’Brien that tells his story as a soldier in the Vietnam War. Many of the vignettes he tells are deeply disturbing. They express the fear O’Brien and the men in the Alpha Company felt while stationed in Vietnam. O’Brien shows this through the use of flashbacks of the travesties he witnessed. He uses the unfamiliar setting and the intense, rapidly changing mood to strengthen them. These three elements of style truly bring out O’Briens writing, and show the emotion behind his words, helping the reader fully understand his experiences.
The chapter “The Man I Killed” includes an in depth examination of the dead Vietnam man. Describing all of the man’s new physical attributes from a grenade explosion. “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole, his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman's, his nose was undamaged…” For a full page, O’Brien reminisces about the picture of the man that is now engrained in his head. He further analyzes all of these features deducing and making assumptions about personal details of the life of the dead man. “He would have been taught that to defend the land was a man's highest duty and highest privilege. He had accepted this. It was never open to question. Secretly, though, it also frightened him. He was not a fighter.” This chapter is also extremely influential to O’Brien, who uses imagery as a way to grasp his actions. O’Brien does not try to dull his pain or separate himself from the dead man. Giving the dead man a back-story only makes him more human making this kill so much less detached and much more personal. Kiowa tries to help O’Brien justify his actions, but O’Brien is not focused on the
Back to more agonizing death, in the chapter “In The Field,” the platoon is hit with a devastating loss of life, and one of the men suffers very deep shame and guilt for the part he played. The platoon makes camp in a field along the river, despite the locals warnings to stay out. It’s raining and within a short time, they realize they’ve made camp in the village’s toilet. As the water rises, the field becomes deep muck. During the night, Kiowa’s best buddy, a young soldier, clicked on his flashlight to show Kiowa a picture and within a millisecond mortar rounds started exploding all around them, Kiowa was wounded, went under the water and muck, and drowned. O’Brien himself stated, “There were bubbles where Kiowa’s head should’ve been” (O’Brien