Unseen Scars: The Psychological Cost of War

There you stand over the body of a fallen friend, a brother or sister in arms. You are asking yourself why them, why not you? What could have I done to save them? That is when you wake up, sweating, panting. It was just a night terror, yet it feels the same as the day they died, even though it has been ten years. This is just one of the many emotional scars soldiers of war face. Though why do we go to war when this is the cost? For many it is because they are unaware of the psychological cost of war, they are only aware of the monetary cost. Tim O 'Brien addresses the true cost of war in The Things They Carried. O 'Brien suggests that psychological trauma caused by war impedes daily life in young Americans drafted into the Vietnam war. He does

The reactions that Cross and his troop have to the death of Lavender are very indicative of the psychological trauma that death in war can have on soldiers. Kiowa, a member of the troop, frequently refers to Lavender 's death with "boom, down" or "zapped while zipping" (108). Although, he is not the only soldier who utters these two phrases. Rat Kiley, can only express the phrase "the guys dead" (106) over and over again. The reactions these soldiers have are neither out of the ordinary, nor normal for an environment and profession ravaged by death constantly. To make joke or light of the death may seem as cruel and insensitive, yet it is a way of coping with death so that one does not become consumed by it, like Cross does. Not only does he forgo love because of Lavender 's death he also relives the death constantly. O 'Brien makes this very apparent in the way he present 's Lavenders death to the reader. He never tells Cross ' story in order from start to finish. Yet he intertwines the happenings before and after the occurrence of Lavender 's death with the actual day he dies. In this way the story can be viewed in the present and past. It can be read as if the events are happening as they are told, or as if Cross is reliving these memories years after the Vietnam war in a night terror or flashback. Death can have such a lasting impact that it permanently scars you mentally, so much that it

O 'Brien makes this very clear in his description of object 's weight throughout the entire story. Cross ' letters from Martha weighed "10 Ounces" (101). Mitchell Sanders carried a PRC-25 radio that weighed "26 pounds" (103). Ted Lavender carried the starlight scope that weighed "6.3 pounds" (105). Though they all carried "emotional baggage of men who might die", emotions that were intangible, yet "had their own mass, their own tangible weight" (109). This can be seen in O 'Brien 's portrayal of Cross ' love for Martha, the death of Lavender, the need to carry trinkets, such as rocks, and rabbit 's feet, that were considered "lucky". It can also be inferred by the cultural context and setting of the story. It is the late 1900 's and boys just out of puberty are being drafted into a war they had no intention of fighting. They were not signing up to go to war. Instead they were being ripped away from friends, family, significant others, children, everything that was normal for them, and being supplanted into a foreign country with hundreds of others just like them. The mental stress caused by this though intangible is definitely a heavy burden on Cross and his troop. It is even worse when they return back to home, to a place that has changed, moved on as if they never existed. It is enough to drive