A famous quote by Tim O’Brien “Each morning, despite the unknowns, they made their legs move.” O’brien is saying that no matter how indifferent their mission was or what they had to do, the soldiers of Vietnam completed their missions without a sound. Though many Soldiers went through very traumatic ordeals while they were there in the war. This war was unlike any other, there were no fronts, the war was all around you. This brought a constant fear of death to the war, causing mental problems among the soldiers. The war also required many supplies to be prepared for an ambush, as well as prepared to stay and camp wherever they were, but the weight on the back was not light. The combat side of the war was very difficult, the terrain in …show more content…
Vietnam contained many thick jungles, and it was constantly hot, humid and raining, making traveling through the war very difficult. The Life of a Vietnam Soldier consisted of mental, physical, as well combatant struggles, that made the lives of the soldiers more difficult each and every day that they are in Vietnam. The Vietnam War was a very traumatic ordeal for many of the soldiers that were fighting the war.
Combatants on both sides faced mental challenges every single day whether being at their compound or out fighting. According to the author “There was no war front to advance, no safe region to defend, not even a well defined theatre in which to operate.” and “The Vietnam conflict was a 360 degree war where soldiers --particularly Americans and Westerners-- might encounter attacks, ambushes and booby traps at any place or time.” Where the author states “no safe region” this puts a soldier's mind in alert mode all day every day, which causes major stress on an individual. “...the conflict was a 360 degree war…” this is another stressful factor because your mind is constantly wondering where and when is somebody going to come out of the forest to kill you. As we see in the The Things They Carried By Tim O’Brien, On page 105 of the novel O’Brien states “There was no emotion in her stare, no sense, of person behind it. When O’Brien state “no emotion, and no sense” he is trying to percieve to the reader that the constant stress of war will cause to lose your sense of safety in any place where you think you can call safe. And you lose your sense of emotion because you may be forced to do something that goes against your values, but you cannot vere away from them because they are orders. “The effectiveness of American Soldiers was undermined not by a lack of skill or courage...but by unclear military
objectives” The physical side of the Vietnam War was very grueling and demanding. According to the author “US Infantrymen (grunts) carried either a rifle (M-16), or a machine gun (M-60, belt fed), or an M-79 grenade launcher. If the grunt was a radio operator (RTO-Radio Telephone Operator) he also carried a radio ON HIS BACK.” , “Average weight carried by infantrymen in Vietnam was (+-) 85 pounds. When the author of the article states “ON HIS BACK” he is portraying the amount weight that they had to carry. The weight from all the supplies that they have to carry is very draining on the person that is carrying it. This was not only enhanced by the climate as well as the grueling terrain of the forests of Vietnam. In The Things They Carried O’Brien states “To carry something was to hump it… In its intransitive form, to hump meant to walk, or to march, but it implied burdens farm beyond the intransitive.” (P3) O’Brien is saying from this that him as well as some of his men had to carry a absurd amount and others carried only the bare necessities needed to survive out in the war. “In addition, Dobbins carried between 10 and 15 pounds of ammunition draped in belts across his chest and soldiers” Dobbins was not required to carry this much ammunition but it was up to him to carry this much ammunition. I feel that he carried this much ammunition because it made him feel safer and much more in control if a battle arrises. Unlike Henry Dobbins Lieutenant Jimmy Cross due to his rank, does not have to carry as many supplies then the other soldiers or “grunts” as stated in the novel. Cross has a more important job on his back, to keep his soldiers in line so they do not become injured. But when Jimmy Cross states in the quote “but implied burdens far beyond the intransitive” he is saying that they are carrying things that are much heavier than any physical supply they can carry. He is talking about the thoughts of what their loved ones are doing at home, as well as the thoughts that are going through their head that they may not go home, but the thoughts of that give them the extra push to do the jobs that are assigned to them. “The heat, humidity, monsoonal rain and groundwater meant that uniformed GIs were almost constantly drenched with water or sweat.” As he says “drenched with water or sweat” this takes a giant toll on the soldier when you are sweating profusely or you are soaking wet, the wetness plus the heat eat through the energy that you have thus needing more water and food, causing for more supplies to be added to their bag. The combatant side of things was very traumatizing as well as deadly. The war was focused on the North Vietnamese, yet this war was very tricky as civilians, South Vietnamese, as well as the North Vietnamese all dressed alike. There was one battle that stood out in the Vietnam war, The My Lai Massacre, this battle was one of the highest civilian death counts. According to research an article states “it is believed that as many as 500 people including women, children and the elderly were killed in the My Lai Massacre.. Higher-ranking U.S. Army officers managed to cover up the events of that day” When stated “women, children, and the elderly were killed” because the South Vietnamese were constantly in fear of their lives, they were constantly drugged. Because of the impaired state that the soldiers were in, and their mission to trace out the North Vietnamese, the soldiers became very impatient and started to open fire on innocent civilians. In the novel we see O’Brien state “He (Rat Kiley) bent forward and whispered something, as talking to a pet”(P75 TTTC) When “as talking to a pet” is stated the author is trying to portray to the reader the innocence that the baby water buffalo holds. Rat Kiley in the novel brutally murders the baby buffalo. Rat Kiley to justify the murder of the baby buffalo state's “Rat Kiley had lost his best friend in the world” Because someone had killed his best friend, Rat had to get revenge on some innocent thing just as the innocent Curt Lemon was playing and stepped on a claymore and was killed. This was Rat Kiley’s way to cope with the loss of “his best friend in the world” This while the whole platoon is watching where in the novel the author states “The rest of us stood in a ragged circle around the baby buffalo. For a time no one spoke” When “no one spoke” is stated in the novel this shows that the soldiers have been desensitized due to the violence, the cruel and unusual mission, and missions that have no meaning. In the novel we see a transformation in Mary Anne Bell from a sweet high school girl to a full on murderer. In the novel O’Brien states “She was wearing her culottes, her pink sweater, and a necklace full of human tongues. She was dangerous. Ready for the Kill” (110) When O’Brien states “necklace full of human tongues” he is trying to relate the transformation of Mary Anne to the overall transformation that a soldier during the Vietnam war may have. The killing of innocent civilians was due to the paranoia that the soldiers endured as well as the lack of cause to fight the war. This caused a mental as well as physical change that lead to the deaths of many civilians as well as a war crime against all of those who partook in the killings. The Tet Offensive another well known battle of the Vietnam War was a surprise attack from the North Vietnamese against the South Vietnamese as well as the United States. This was an attempt to draw the United states out of the Vietnam war, yet this did not yield much. Back home the war was being watched in almost every living room. The United States civilians as much as the back the war before it was broadcasted was having change of thoughts. In the novel attacks are imminent, they can come from any angle at any time of the day. In the novel the author states “ No safe ground: enemies everywhere. No front or rear.” O’Brien is stating there is no safe ground that is how the Vietnam war is being fought. A new battle could start right next to you and end right in front of your shelter. No place in Vietnam during this time is safe and many if not all the soldiers are aware of this. Overall The Life of a Vietnam Soldier consisted of mental, physical, as well combatant struggles, that made the lives of the soldiers more difficult each and every day that they are in Vietnam. The Vietnam war was a “360 degree war” this is another stressful factor because your mind is constantly wondering where and when is somebody going to come out of the forest to kill you. The physical side was very grueling and demanding upon the individual at hand. Soldiers in the Vietnam War had to be constantly prepared, they had to carry massive loads of supplies on their backs. Soldiers had to carry upwards of +-85 pounds, this included much needed supplies, plus any personal items that a soldier may require. The combatant side of the war was very traumatizing as well as deadly. Many soldier due to the lack of purpose of the war and the constant fear of death. The Vietnam war was very tricky, the civilians and the North Vietnamese all dressed similar, no one knew who was the real enemy. The My Lai incident was a very deadly attack, where U.S. soldiers had killed hundreds of innocent civilians. This relates to how Rat Kiley killed and tortured the innocent baby water buffalo in the novel. The lives of soldiers had changed very significantly from the first day they arrived in the war to the last day when they were about to leave. The traumatic ordeals, horrible combat situations as well as mental changes, will forever change the life of Vietnam soldier.
The Vietnam War was a controversial conflict that plagued the United States for many years. The loss of life caused by the war was devastating. For those who came back alive, their lives were profoundly changed. The impact the war had on servicemen would affect them for the rest of their lives; each soldier may have only played one small part in the war, but the war played a huge part in their lives. They went in feeling one way, and came home feeling completely different. In the book Vietnam Perkasie, W.D. Ehrhart describes his change from a proud young American Marine to a man filled with immense confusion, anger, and guilt over the atrocities he witnessed and participated in during the war.
Mark Atwood Lawrence’s The Vietnam War: A Concise International History shows readers an international affair involving many nations and how the conflict progressed throughout its rather large existence. Lawrence starts his book in a time before America was involved in the war. It starts out with the French trying to colonize the nation of Vietnam. Soon the United States gets involved and struggles to get its point across in the jungles of Indo-China. Much of the book focuses on the American participation in helping South Vietnam vie for freedom to combine the country as a whole not under Communist rule. Without seeing many results, the war drug on for quite some time with neither side giving up. This resulted in problems in Vietnam and the U.S.
...nal lives, but O'Brien's choice to focus one soldier, Lt. Cross, lets the reader scope the depths of the human mind during an extremely stressful situation. As a young lieutenant, this man shoulders his own longing for love, the death of a fellow soldier, the guilt he places on himself, as well as the added duties of responsibilities for a platoon of men. The narrator provides one specific quote, which perfectly summarizes the mental aspects of war: "They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing -- these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight" (443). Indeed, the intangibles in this story do have tangible weight -- weight that Lt. Cross must carry for the rest of his life.
For young people, the Vietnam War is a thing of the past and they can
	The novel illuminates light on the situation not just during the Vietnam era, but also rather throughout all history and the future to come. Throughout mankind’s occupation of earth, we have been plagued by war and the sufferings caused by it. Nearly every generation of people to walk this earth have experienced a great war once in their lifetimes. For instance, Vietnam for my father’s generation, World War 2 for my grandfather’s, and World War 1 for my great-grandfather’s. War has become an unavoidable factor of life. Looking through history and toward the future, I grow concerned over the war that will plague my generation, for it might be the last war.
In conclusion the soldiers use dark humor, daydreaming, and violent actions which all allow an escape from the horrors they had to go through in Vietnam. These coping mechanisms allowed the men to continue to fight and survive the war. They wouldn’t have been able to carry on if it wasn’t for the outlets these methods provided. Without humor, daydreaming, and violent actions, the war would have been unbearable for the men, and detrimental to their lives going forward.
The theme of emotional weight and its effect on soldiers in the Vietnam conflict is one that O'Brien tackles. By placing physical items next to intangible things like emotions in a list format, O'Brien forces his reader to acknowledge the weight and effect of both of these things on the person who carries them. Lt. Jimmy Cross' inner fear that he was the cause of Ted Lavender's death was symbolized by Martha's pebble and letters. He felt that when he burned the pictures he was conquering his fear, even though no one can simply burn their emotions away. To a certain extent, these men are defined by the things that they carry, "And for all the ambiguities of Vietnam, all the mysteries and unknowns, there was at least the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry," (O'Brien, 16).
Tim O’Brien served in the Vietnam War, and his short story “The Things They Carried” presents the effects of the war on its young soldiers. The treatment of veterans after their return also affects them. The Vietnam War was different from other wars, because too many in the U.S. the soldiers did not return as heroes but as cruel, wicked, and drug addicted men. The public directs its distaste towards the war at the soldiers, as if they are to blame. The also Veterans had little support from the government who pulled them away from their families to fight through the draft. Some men were not able to receive the help they needed because the symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) did not show until a year
In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, the readers follow the Alpha Company’s experiences during the Vietnam War through the telling’s of the main character and narrator, Tim. At the beginning of the story, Tim describes the things that each character carries, also revealing certain aspects of the characters as can be interpreted by the audience. The book delineates what kind of person each character is throughout the chapters. As the novel progresses, the characters’ personalities change due to certain events of the war. The novel shows that due to these experiences during the Vietnam War, there is always a turning point for each soldier, especially as shown with Bob “Rat” Kiley and Azar. With this turning point also comes the loss of innocence for these soldiers. O’Brien covers certain stages of grief and self-blame associated with these events in these stories as well in order to articulate just how those involved felt so that the reader can imagine what the effects of these events would be like for them had they been a part of it.
Experiences and Emotions in The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried is not a novel about the Vietnam War. “It is a story about the soldiers and their experiences and emotions that are brought about from the war” (King 182). O'Brien makes several statements about war through these dynamic characters. He shows the violent nature of soldiers under the pressures of war, he makes an effective antiwar statement, and he comments on the reversal of a social deviation into the norm. By skillfully employing the stylistic technique of specific, conscious detail selection and utilizing connotative diction, O'Brien thoroughly and convincingly makes each point.
In the beginning chapter, O’Brien rambles about the items the soldiers carry into battle, ranging from can openers, pocketknives, and mosquito repellent to Kool-Aid, sewing kits, and M-16 assault rifles. Yet, the story is truly about the intangible things the soldiers “carry”: “grief, terror, love, longing. shameful memories (and) the common secret of cowardice” (Harris & O’Brien 21). Most of the soldiers did not know what the overall purpose was of fighting the Vietnamese (Tessein). The young men “carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing”.
Vietnam War (1954-1975) is considered as one of those big wars of the modern world that has been acknowledged and studied by countries in the world. Especially, in regard to the United States, starting and ending war in Vietnam was an unforgettable experience that has left a priceless lesson in its foreign policy, and of course a lot of loss, physically, mentally, and property. “The Legacy of Vietnam” article of George Herring basically summarizes how the Vietnam War led to an end in failure of America and what consequences it left behind.
The soldiers that fought in the Vietnam War had to endure many incredibly horrifying experiences. It was these events that led to great human emotions. It was those feelings that were the things they carried. Everything they carried affected them, whether it was physical or mental. Everything they carry could in one way or another cause them to emotionally or physically break down.
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.
As we got further and further into the Vietnam War, few lives were untouched by grief, anger and fear. The Vietnamese suffered the worst hardship; children lay dead in the street, villages remained nothing but charred ashes, and bombs destroyed thousands of innocent civilians. Soldiers were scarred emotionally as well as physically, as