Summary Of The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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When asked about the tragedy of Vietnam, historian Max Hastings explained “that it was a war that left scars not just on the land, but on the souls of all who lived through it” (“Vietnam.”). These scars, both physical and psychological, were inflicted on the over nine million soldiers who suffered through years of grueling warfare (“US.”). One of those soldiers was Tim O’Brien, a Vietnam veteran who served from 1969 to 1970. O’Brien leveraged his experiences to paint a picture of the war in his novel The Things They Carried. The book is written from O’Brien and his fellow soldiers’ perspectives as they are forced to grapple with the emotions associated with serving in Vietnam. A character of O’Brien’s frequent attention was Rat Kiley, the platoon’s …show more content…

He began picking at imaginary bug bites and explained to Mitchell Sanders that “everybody [was] meat for the bugs” (O’Brien 212). Kiley mentioned the bugs to illustrate that they were the only ones to benefit from the war. Nobody from the United States, North Vietnam, or South Vietnam could possibly be rewarded for the senseless slaughter of soldiers. Kiley’s comment also suggests that, in the end, all of the soldiers were doomed. The Rat Kiley from two years prior never would have made a comment so dark, demonstrating the immense impact the environment of war had on him. The following morning, Kiley’s pent-up anxiety and paranoia bubbled over. To escape Vietnam “he took off his boots and socks, laid out his medical kit, doped himself up, and put a round through his foot” (O’Brien 212). A soldier shooting himself in the foot to escape a war has long been viewed as a sign of weakness, however, in this situation, it symbolized courage. He did what no other soldier in his platoon was willing to do and freed himself from Vietnam before it could harm him …show more content…

However, after the death of his best friend Curt Lemon, grief began to infiltrate his mind. This can be seen through the baby water buffalo he killed, a symbol of the platoon’s depleting innocence, and the letter he wrote, a sign of the futility of the war. Kiley’s development is representative of a broader shift in the soldiers in Vietnam as the war transitioned from the Good War to the more gruesome Bad War. Then, after years of being an army medic, a job synonymous with loss, Kiley could not tolerate Vietnam anymore. He began to make illogical comments about the bugs and suggested that they were the only ones to benefit from the war. After warning his platoon that everyone was doomed, he shot himself to discharge himself from Vietnam. While such an action would typically not be associated with valor, it was brave of Kiley to put his mental state in his hands. For many, the greatest challenge of serving in Vietnam was preserving their sanity. Doing so, however, was easier said than done, and, when the war concluded in 1975, the nine million soldiers who returned to the United States were not the same people who left it just a few years

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